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AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: THE POLYGLOT 
EMPIRE 



AUSTRIA HUNGARY: 

THE POLYGLOT EMPIRE 



BY 



WOLF VON SCHIERBRAND, Ph.D., LL.D. 

AUTHOR OF 
'RUSSIA, HER STRENGTH AND HER WEAKNESS," "AMERICA, ASIA AND THE 

PACIFIC," "Germany: the welding of a world power" 



WITH A MAP IN COLOURS 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



-^t) 






Copyright, 1917, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 



All rights reserved, including that of translation 
into foreign languages 



OCT -6 1917 
©G1.A476388 



•/ > 



PEEFACE 

First, a disclaimer. This is not a mere war book. 
There have, if anything, been too many of these. All 
necessarily suffered from the deficiencies of war books. 
The material had been more or less hurriedly gathered ; 
personal prejudices warped judgment ; the view was re- 
stricted, and so were the sources of information on which 
it was based; lastly, haste was again the dominant fea- 
ture in the final task of writing. The result was, per- 
haps, readable, but could scarcely be termed dependable. 

During the four years I resided in Austria — 1912 till 
a few months ago — ^I enjoyed full opportunities of study- 
ing land and people at close range. Trips to Hungary 
and to the Austrian provinces enabled me to supplement 
or revise this knowledge on important points. The 
war came. Again there was a total shifting of scene, 
a complete alteration in modes of thought and action, in 
aims confessed. I lived close to these people, as one of 
themselves in most essentials ; through trying days and 
weary months sharing with them the crust of bread as 
well as their joys and sorrows; looking into their hearts, 
hearing them speak and moan and weep. I saw some 
actual fighting. I witnessed some hunger riots. Of some 
of these things and others indeed, the book has a word 
to say. 

Among the books that have appeared in the recent or 
more remote past dealing with the chief aspects of the 
Dual Monarchy, the author recalls none that set out 
along the same path or with the same purpose. This 

V 



vi PREFACE 

purpose in the main has been: To afford the reader a 
sufficient outline of the process of growth and accretion 
active in creating the Austria-Hungary of to-day, of the 
natural resources of the land and of the vital character- 
istics of the many-tongued population. Next, to point 
out the chief problems of the polyglot nation, inherently 
owing to the peculiar genesis of the monarchy as a whole, 
problems so knotty and deep-seated that their non-solu- 
tion hitherto has gone far towards wrecking the country 
as an independent political entity. And third, to define 
the most feasible (and perhaps the only) means of allay- 
ing or entirely removing these difficulties, as these means 
have gradually shaped themselves in the minds of the 
thinking and potential elements of Austria-Hungary. 

Side by side with such matter as tends to elucidate this 
paramount object, there also appears information in the 
body of this book which may interest the reader for its 
own sake. A good deal of it rests on the personal im- 
pressions of the writer. Some readers may like the book 
the better for that. 

One more remark. I think I may honestly claim for 
myself to be actuated by no conscious bias in dealing with 
political, social and racial questions discussed here. Cer- 
tainly none has swayed my judgment in looking towards 
ultimate ends. The political reforms urgently called for, 
both in Hungary and Austria, to bring those two coun- 
tries abreast of the times, abreast of the West, are not 
subject to opinion ; they are demanded by the facts them- 
selves. Neither has my sincere liking for and sympathy 
with the people of Austria-Hungary blinded me to their 
serious failings ; failings, however, which, nearly all of 
them, do more harm to themselves than to others. 

The scope of this work embraces much that, heretofore, 
has been handled not at all or else wholly in desultory 



PREFACE vii 

fashion. I venture to hope that the book may do some- 
thing towards modifying certain erroneous conceptions 
held by many Americans relative to Austria-Hungary. I 
do not pretend, however, to have exhausted the theme as 
a whole. Twice the space would not suffice for that. All 
the same, my book may fulfil a useful mission. With that 
hope I rest content. 

W. V. S. 



CONTENTS 



Preface 

I. General Descriptive Eemarks about the Dual 

ARCHY 

II. How THE Dual Monarchy Became What It Is 

III. Unique Features Forming Part of the Process 

IV. Eacial Problems Outlined . 
V. Inherent Difficulties of It 

VI. Centralisation and Decentralisation 

VII. Solution of the Enigma 

VIII. PoLiTicATi Life ..... 

IX. Causes op Political Backwardness . 

X. The Habsburgs and Their Family Policy 

XI. The Imperial Court .... 

XII. Austria-Hungary during the War 

XIII. The Food Question and Some Others . 

XIV. Economic Troubles and Their Remedy 
XV. Aid to Needy and Injured . 

XVI. Refuge Camps and Barrack Towns . 

XVII. Visits to War Prisoners 

XVIII. Stray Facts and Personal Experiences 

XIX. Concluding Remarks .... 

Index 



MON- 



PAQB 
V 

1 

26 

44 

60 

74 

89 

99 

115 

136 

146 

156 

181 

203 

224 

240 

257 

276 

301 

320 

345 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: THE POLYGLOT 
EMPIRE 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: THE 
POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

CHAPTER I 

GENEBAIi DESOEIPTIVE KEMARKS ABOUT THE DUAL MONAECHY 

Too little known by the outside world — Prediction that after the war 
American tourists and lovers of sport will become acquainted with 
some of the country — Beautiful scenery; the Carpathians, Transyl- 
vanian Alps, the Switzerland of Austria, the Tyrol, Styria and Ca- 
rinthia, the Waehau, excelling the Rhine Valley, the cave wonders of 
Carniola, the "Bohemian Forest," wild and rugged Bosnia and Her- 
cegovina, the picturesque Dalmatian coast, the Semmering, with its 
glaciers just a step from Vienna — Big game and fine sport every- 
where; bear hunting and deer stalking, grouse, capercailzie and 
aquatic birds on the Narenta — Throughout the people are good- 
natured, simple, hospitable — Class distinctions and caste spirit — 
Korber and American aid — Many natural resources lying fallow — 
"Water and electric power — Mining — Urban population — Vienna 
and Budapest — School system and higher education — The woman 
question — Marriage and the State — Illegitimacy — Statistics — War 
the great leveller — ^Distinctive traits of the population — ^Worthy of 
a brighter future. 

Among the amazing things about Austria-Hungary is 
undoubtedly the fact that this beautiful region of the 
globe is so little known by the outside world. Of course 
there are guide books which tell more or less e3:plicitly 
and correctly about every section of the Dual Monarchy. 

1 



2 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIEE 

It is not that I mean. Wliat I do mean is that, of that 
immensely large body of tourists and lovers of sport who 
annually, especially during the warm season, go forth to 
enjoy the excitement of travel, the rapid change of 
scenery, the bagging of ''big game," the delight of varied 
natural attractions, the rubbing of elbows with races un- 
known to them before, the study of quaint and pic- 
turesque customs and manners, the imbibing of sights 
and things of beauty — that of this whole immense army, 
crowding in normal times all ocean steamers and railway 
lines and mountain paths, but such a sorry fragment 
finds its way to Austria-Hungary. For it can be predi- 
cated with every guarantee of truth that in all those 
essentials that make an extensive trip worth while to 
the discriminating or even to the careless and thought- 
less throng, the lands forming jointly Austria-Hungary 
are among the most deserving and remunerative. Yet 
of all those shoals of Americans and British flooding each 
summer the continent of Europe for recreation, for in- 
struction, or for the sake of re-establishing failing health, 
barely one or at most two per cent, deem it wise to make 
a special tour of the Danube lands. And even of this 
small percentage few extend their travels beyond brief 
passing visits to Vienna, Budapest and, at most, a couple 
of other points not too far off the beaten track. To any 
one who has had the exquisite pleasure of peregrinating 
at leisure the whole of Austria-Hungary this fact seems 
a marvel, especially when one remembers that in these 
days, when to sated eyes this terrestrial sphere of ours 
appears to shrink more and more, when the waste spaces 
and the hitherto inaccessible or unknown regions of the 
earth are rapidly dwindling or entirely disappearing, 
even journeys around the globe waxing stale, and when 
dangerous excursions to the interior of fever-haunted 



DESCRIPTIONS ABOUT DUAL MONARCHY 3 

Africa, to the ether-piercing mountain giants of Tibet or 
Pern are accounted commonplace, Austria-Hungary is 
still allowed to remain aside. 

And I know whereof I speak. For before settling for 
a rather lengthy residence in Austria-Hungary I found 
it next to impossible to meet in this country with any one 
who could impart to me such enlightening information as 
I craved, reliable and detailed information, that is, on 
such points, for example, as are treated of in this book. 
Austria-Hungary herself has been asleep for the space 
of two generations, and the restless, eager world has 
swept by, overlooking in its programmes of travel a coun- 
try which lay within easy reach, which o:ffered the re- 
sources of civilisation, often of luxury and utmost com- 
fort, yet was practically unknown. And the undeniable 
fact that in an age of frenzied publicity, when to pro- 
claim the advantages one has to offer from the housetops 
is held both virtue and necessity, this somnolent, mostly 
silent and certainly unobtrusive Austria-Hungary has 
put her light under a bushel and has half good-naturedly, 
half contemptuously regarded all this wholesale adver- 
tising on the part of even exotic countries as mere *' hum- 
bug, ' ' as indecent pushing, has had much to do with her 
being overlooked in the rush of travel. A certain aloof- 
ness, indeed, a certain disdain for modern methods of 
attracting the tide of sight-seers is very widespread 
throughout the length and breadth of Austria-Hungary. 
It often takes curious forms. Thus, I remember that not 
only on arriving in Vienna and proclaiming my intention 
of remaining there a good bit of time, but afterwards as 
well, a common query addressed to me, rather wonder- 
ingly, was: ''And what made you choose Austria-Hun- 
gary as your objective?" And it always proved rather 



4 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

difficult to furnish a satisfactory explanation; to plead 
an excuse, so to speak. 

Again, just to illustrate the odd view taken of the busi- 
ness of life, I will cite this little instance, trifling in itself 
but highly characteristic. During a brief midsummer 
stay in the Tyrol, a year before the war, I was housed at 
an inn in the Zillerthal. Mine host wore a grey beard 
about a foot long. He was well-to-do, almost wealthy, 
as things go there. His broad acres included a charming 
hillside whence a lovely view reminded one in its filmy 
outline of a bridal veil ; with knolls densely wooded and 
crystal brooks babbling in the silence. All it would have 
required to make this charming spot fit for great pil- 
grimage during the warm season was a hotel, verandas, 
a kitchen adequate to feed the multitude not too scantily, 
with prices yielding a fair profit. In chatting with this 
nice old boniface of mine I ventured to suggest something 
like this to him. He smiled, rather scornfully. "Yes," 
he then remarked, dreamily, ''I've had plenty of offers — 
from exploitation companies, from summer guests of 
mine, from capitalists abroad. "What is the use? I am 
quite content here. So is my family. It would only 
mean a lot of worry. It would mean that we should no 
longer be our own masters; that all these strangers 
(Fremden) would turn us out of house and home. And 
what for? I've got money enough, more than I need. 
No, no. To take in a few guests during July and August, 
that is well. They tell us what's going on in the world. 
But that is enough. That does not mean that we have 
to slave for other people, for people who don't care a 
rap for me or mine." 

And I found that the views of this old man were shared 
by most of those in the romantic Alpine lands of Austria 
with whom I came in contact. The villagers were averse 



DESCRIPTIONS ABOUT DUAL MONARCHY 5 

to having the turmoil of the town, the eager quest of 
money and gain introduced in their quiet, sober home- 
steads. They far prefer their old-fashioned comfort to 
the bustle of piling up riches ; riches with which, after all, 
most of them would not know what to do. For theirs is 
indeed the simple life. Even many of the wealthier ones 
are content with sterz (a sort of mush, to which a bit of 
bacon has been added) as the main ingredient of the prin- 
cipal meal. They look aghast at city strife and at the 
race for money. And this homely philosophy, no doubt, 
has something to do with the quaint, old-time flavour of 
Austria's (and also Hungary's) rural life and, inci- 
dentally, with the lack of organised effort to attract the 
tourist of the outer world to their mountain sides and 
the crag-encircled vales of their homes. Otherwise, as I 
intimated, there is not much to prevent a steadily increas- 
ing stream of visitors to enjoy themselves. Rates are 
low enough. Good, even excellent, hotels are existing 
in reasonable numbers. At just a very few favoured 
spots, owing to special conditions, prices range somewhat 
high. That, for instance, is the case up on the Sem- 
mering. But that is both comprehensible and excusable. 
For the Semmering, a mountain ridge 6000 feet and over 
high, leading from Lower Austria into Styria on the main 
line to Trieste, can be reached by rail from Vienna within 
a couple of hours. And not only is the scenery up there 
bewilderingly grand and beautiful, but this wonderful 
Semmering provides, too, during the glare and heat of 
the dog days, midwinter sports — glaciers, skiing, rodeln 
i.e., sleighing and sledding), climbing, skating. So there 
were actually a few Austrians (and Germans, of course) 
of such remarkable enterprise as to erect some lux- 
uriously appointed, magnificently located, huge interna- 
tional caravansaries, where everything is to be had that 



6 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

one can find at St. Moritz or elsewhere, with correspond- 
ing rates. The Vienna people now call it ''Millionaire's 
Mountain," and pretend that the charges are frightful. 
But things are really not so bad as that. It is similar 
as regards hotels and restaurants in the large cities of 
Austria and Hungary. Indeed none of them even re- 
motely approaches in expensiveness our own American 
hotels of the first rank; and while none of them, either, 
can boast of all and every feature of comfort and con- 
venience that distinguish the latter, the guest will notice 
with pleasure that, on the other hand, they show attrac- 
tions peculiarly their own. But it is not my purpose to 
go into these details. 

Relatively few persons ouiside of Austria have ever 
heard of the WacJiau. And yet it means a trip that in 
some essential respects excels in attractiveness a trip 
down the far-famed Rhine, from Mayence to Cologne, 
say. The WacJiau is a district along the upper Danube 
River. Comfortable steamers are most enjoyable for the 
ride down. It is best to go from Vienna by rail a short 
distance, and then board a boat and stop at the most 
interesting points. The Danube rushes here through 
a narrow bed, with steep picturesque hills rising on both 
shores. It is this part of the Danube that the ancient 
Lai/ of the Nihelmig describes so wonderfully, with old 
Pochlarn, fief of old Eiidiger from Attila the Hun, still 
existing in its hollow; with the wealthy Benedictine Ab- 
bey of Melk frowning down from its rocky promontory. 
Vineyards everywhere, narrow defiles, ruined old castles 
of knight and lord crowning the brow or summit of the 
hills; a wine of almost southern fire is grown on these 
sunkissed mountainsides. You stop ; you leave the boat ; 
you put up at one of the quaint little towns. Usually they 
have but one steep, narrow street; but there are flowers 



DESCEIPTIONS ABOUT DUAL MONAECHY 7 

at each window, orchards and blossoms in each of the 
little spaces behind the old-fashioned houses of dazzling 
white and green. And here, in this WacJiau, you feel you 
are in the 18th century, nay, the 16th. Time seems to 
have stood still. Prices ditto. You could not spend a 
five dollar bill a day if you taxed resources to the ut- 
most. That is the peculiar feature of Austria-Hungary : 
that it is a country abounding in varied scenery of en- 
trancing beauty everywhere you go. There are immense 
contrasts, it is true, but that heightens the charm. You 
feel all the while like a discoverer. What could be, for 
instance, more dissimilar in outline and in the subtle 
spirit that stamps each landscape as a thing apart, than 
a bit of scenery in the Austrian or Tyrolese Alps and 
one on the Puszta or the Alf old in Hungary ! The purple 
porphyry giants of southern Tyrol, rising 12,000 feet 
high, naked, bare, steeped in the glare of the hot sun, with 
the eternal snows capping their domes, seaming the bold 
walls! And the prairie land of Hungary, almost level, 
with azure sky, with boundless horizon, with green, wav- 
ing corn as far as eye can scan, flecked cattle with enor- 
mous horns, grazing; the czihos (horseherd) flying along 
with the wind in his wide, snowy garments, and the stal- 
lions following, neighing and with thundering hoof. You 
make the acquaintance of the czikos. With true Magyar 
hospitality he invites you at once to partake of his plain 
meal : a gulyas, a real one, with paprika enough in it to 
make your eyes wink, and with a thimbleful of the genuine 
slivovic to wash it down. The czikos talks to you. He 
discovers you are from America. Instantly his manner 
changes. He becomes confidential, sympathetic; he has 
a brother in Pennsylvania, he says. Many of these Hun- 
garians, spending all their lives on this flat land, have 
never seen anything higher than a church steeple. Dur- 



8 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

ing this war, when Magyar regiments for the first time 
began to form the front against Italy, they saw these 
Tyrolese dolomite giants towering to the skies — 9,000, 
10,000, 12,000 feet high. And they were to get up there 
and to hold them with Magyar valour, they were told. It 
was more than they could grasp at first. But by and by 
they discovered that up there, too, there was air they 
could breathe — a fact which at first they had doubted. 
''We are not goats," they had told their officers. But 
they learned to climb. 

However, of grand scenery none excels in point of 
variety that offered by the Carpathian range, notably 
that portion known as the High Tatra. It is a region still 
so little known that for many of the most beautiful bits 
of scenery there is not even a name. The range itself 
divides Galicia and Western Moravia from Hungary 
proper, but the Tatra, with its rugged pine-clad peaks and 
chasms, is by far the most picturesque portion of it. 
Although there are mineral springs and watering places 
and health resorts hidden away in it, many districts of 
the Tatra are still so difficult of access and so wild that 
the huge Russian brown bear finds it a congenial home. 
Bear hunting forms, therefore, a chief sport. But the 
whole region abounds, besides, in game, big and small, 
including the eagle, vulture, fox, lynx, wolf, and various 
species valued for their fur. And what applies to the 
Tatra portion of the Carpathians also applies to Bosnia 
and Hercegovina, territories held by the Turks till 1878, 
and formally annexed by Austria-Hungary but a few 
years since. These two provinces, which administra- 
tively form but one unit at present, are wild and rugged 
beyond compare. There, too, the bear is at home, and 
for the hardy sportsman there is scarcely a better field 
to visit. But things are extremely primitive there as 



DESCRIPTIONS ABOUT DUAL MONARCHY 9 

yet, and even such an institution as the guide does not 
exist. But experienced native hunters are easy to find, 
and a bargain is struck without trouble. The chase is 
practically unrestricted in Bosnia and Hercegovina. As 
there is no native nobility, there are no shooting lodges, 
no inns in this wilderness; ** roughing it'* is the motto. 
But the sport is grand ; game is plentiful, and the scenery 
is awe-inspiring in its savage sublimity. It is only ex- 
celled by that of the Bukovina, a small province acquired 
under Emperor Joseph II and adjoining Russia, Ru- 
mania, and Galicia. Bukovina is Slavic and means 
*' beech forest"; and, indeed, on the lower slopes the beech 
abounds, while on the higher ranges the fir and pine and 
larch predominate. Small as Bukovina is, it is still two- 
thirds nature in the rough. The whole country bears 
in its natural features a close resemblance to Switzer- 
land, although its mountains are not so majestic. Yet 
to compensate for that the views are even finer and the 
vegetation is varied and abundant. Much of it is virgin 
forest. The rural population is largely Rumanian, on 
a very low plane of civilisation, but with a set of ancient 
customs, with curious garb and manners, with folk lore, 
dances come down from hoary days, and with historical 
traditions that are all of intense interest to the traveller. 
And game there is of every kind in plenty, there being 
no game preserves and no game laws in force. Bukovina 
has played a very peculiar part during the war. For a 
year or more it was defended by the commander of the 
Bukovina border police. Col. Fischer, in much the same 
way the Tyrol was in 1809 against Napoleon I, a thing 
made feasible by the rugged character of the country. 
With 2000 of his mountaineers Col. Fischer held a Rus- 
sian army of 20,000 at bay. Strange tales of this border 
warfare have leaked out now and then, tales reminding 



10 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

one rather of Fenimore Cooper and his Indian stories. 
On one particular occasion Col. Fischer spread rumours 
of great accessions to his ranks, and he held the Russian 
commander to one spot, largely by dummy batteries con- 
structed out of felled tree trunks, while his men executed 
an important flank movement in quite another quarter. 

Then Transylvania ;, another borderland, with Hungary 
proper on the west and Rumania on the south. It is a 
country remarkable in every way. In point of popula- 
tion, the Rumanian element predominates, folk of curi- 
ously pristine habits and mien, with whom mamaliga, a 
stiff maize mush much like the polenta of Lombardy, is 
practically the sole article of diet, and whose legends and 
traditions, whose fireside songs of dreamy melancholy, 
whose wooing and burying, whose village dances of an- 
tique style, whose loves and hates are all alike impress- 
ing the observer as relics of a remote past. Next to them 
in numerical importance is the Magyar element — the 
larger contingent being the so-called Szeklers (meaning 
Hillmen) : that is, descendants of the aboriginal conquer- 
ing hordes who have been modified but little by the march 
of thirteen centuries, much less, indeed, than their broth- 
ers in Hungary itself. The distinctive characteristics of 
the Magyar, his fiery impetuosity, his boundless hospi- 
tality, his lavish display, his spendthrift ways, his eager 
ambition and trend to adventure and battle have here 
survived most purely. Lastly there are the Saxons of 
Transylvania, first called from their homes by Weser 
and Rhine some seven centuries ago, following the invita- 
tion of King Andrew of Hungary. These Saxons have 
preserved their Teuton type completely. In faith they 
are Lutherans; the Szeklers are Catholics mostly; the 
Rumanians Greek-Orthodox; and in tongue, in customs 
and ideals they closely assimilate with the Germans of the 



DESCEIPTIONS ABOUT DUAL MONAECHY 11 

Empire, and the well-to-do among them invariably study 
at Berlin University and support German theatres, Ger- 
man newspapers and German literature. With all that, 
however, politically they are loyal Hungarians. And in 
this Transylvania there is a mountain range which bears 
the name of Alps ; rightly so, for in scenery and magnifi- 
cent grandeur these mountains vie with those of Switzer- 
land. 

A quiet, sombre beauty of its own, too, is possessed 
by that region described as the Bohemian Forest, a region 
with which many foreigners who have sought health in 
Carlsbad, Marienbad, Teplitz or Franzensbad are more 
or less familiar; whereas the cave wonders of Camiola 
( Adlersberg and vicinity) and Styria and the surpassing 
beauty of the rockbound Dalmatian coast are known to 
few in comparison. Eight in the midst of the war a 
hitherto unknown group of mammoth caves in Styria was 
discovered and explored under the direction of the pro- 
vincial government. I have not seen them, but was told 
that they surpassed anything laid bare in the world in 
point of subterranean extent (some 140 square miles so 
far examined, with some incidental loss of life — now an 
electric plant has been installed) and in fairyland splen- 
dours. Eivers of great size and depth have been found, 
pouring their Acheronian waters into chasms hundreds 
of feet below and there swallowed up by unseen pools. 
Mighty palaces of stalactite, snowy and dazzling, are 
reared below there, a mile or more underneath the Dach- 
stein peak, ornamented with pillars and friezes of mar- 
vellous outhne. I think these wondrous places are now 
accessible, in some of their parts at least. 

And what heightens the charm of a yacht cruise along 
the indented and varied coast of Dalmatia and its islands, 
is the fact that there are ancient harbour towns there, 



12 AUSTRIA-HUNG AEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

Ragusa, Zara, Cattaro, Gravosa, that once attained to im- 
portance and splendour under the Lion of St. Mark; 
islands like Lessina, Lissa and Curzola, which under Ve- 
netian rule of centuries ago were not only beauty spots 
set in the amethyst of the Adriatic, which they are still, 
but more prosperous and with a thriving trade. These 
towns to-day are somewhat listless; but the wonders of 
their graceful architecture have survived. And there is 
Salona, a bit inland, with its splendid ruins of the days 
of Diocletian, the Roman emperor who was the last fierce 
persecutor of the early Christians, himself a native of 
Dalmatia. All these towns, in fact, leave a haunting 
memory behind. Their cypress groves against the azure 
sky stand out in one's recollections. 

Then, as for sport, where else in the world do you find 
every variety of it? Not only do deer and stag abound 
everywhere, but the shy chamois as well, the wild-boar 
and the fiercer denizens of the forest. And as for game 
birds, grouse and capercailzie in the Alpine moors and 
heaths and woods, and water fowl of every species, even 
some found nowhere else, are met with along the low- 
lands of the Danube and Theiss, the Save and Drave, 
down to the Narenta swamps in Hercegovina. In the 
shooting boxes of the Austrian and Hungarian nobility 
one finds unique collections of trophies of the chase. 

Contrasts, contrasts everywhere. Races or fragments 
of races dwelling in their aboriginal homes or overlap- 
ping: A strange medley of Slav and Teuton, of Turani- 
ans in Hungary and Latins in the South and Southeast. 
Polyglot and of many faiths, the only link holding them 
together more or less willingly is the common dynasty, 
the Habsburgs, themselves an amalgam, for their blood, 
too, in the course of centuries has mingled with Slav and 
Latin, with Gaul and Fleming and Burgundian, as a 



\ 



DESCRIPTIONS ABOUT DUAL MONARCHY 13 

glance at the records of the house, a definition of theii* 
heraldic escutcheon, at once betrays. And yet there are, 
to any one going at the business without preconceived no- 
tions, certain traits that seem to belong jointly to the peo- 
ples of Austria-Hungary alike. To this point I will refer 
elsewhere. Here I wish merely to point out that a cer- 
tain easy good-nature, a certain leisureliness, a certain 
trend to hospitality, a certain flabby softness and lack 
of rugged energy, an unpretentious kindness, a certain 
freshness of spirit and naiVeness appear to mark them 
all, no matter what their race or creed. This has struck 
me many times and in many places, under the most di- 
verse circumstances, and I had observed it first in this 
country when consorting with Austrians and Hungarians 
of all kinds. And I don't think I can be mistaken in 
this perception. 

Next to that, though, with some notable exceptions, to 
which I shall refer later, there are a prevailing lack of 
energy (the concomitant nearly always of pronouncedly 
easy disposition) and strong class distinction and caste 
feeling to be noted among the population of Austria- 
Hungary. It does not everywhere take the same form, 
but it exists and makes itself felt. No doubt the latter 
peculiarity is intimately connected with the history of the 
Dual Monarchy, with the political backwardness of the 
people, with their lower standard of life when compared 
with nations further west, and with the scantier influx 
of modem ideas and of the currents of thought set first 
adrift by the French Revolution. It must be recalled that 
Austria never had such a social or political upheaval as 
either France or England, her lack of internal coherence 
being probably largely responsible for that. Nor had 
Hungary and her dependencies such an earthquake, 
either. Her one popular rising, that of 1848-49, was pri- 



14 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIEE 

marily intended to throw off the Austrian yoke, and only 
incidentally and in the second place were the aims favour- 
able to an amelioration of the condition of her masses, or 
to social emancipation. To a certain extent a parallel 
with Germany will suggest itself here, although neither 
political nor social conditions are more than remotely 
analogous. 

But in any event this present war, no matter what its 
ultimate outcome, will prove a potent remedy in levelling 
these crass distinctions of position and caste. That much 
may be even now stated with confidence. To the careful 
eye of the impartial onlooker in Vienna there came cor- 
roborations of this hypothesis all through the varied for- 
tunes of the big war. Fighting in the mass, shoulder to 
shoulder in the trenches, rich and poor, highborn and 
lowborn alike, does breed a spirit of democracy. How 
far it has penetrated and how ineradicable it will prove 
in the days of final peace, I noted with peculiar interest. 
And behind the front, among the civilian population, the 
same fact could be remarked. To be fellows in suffering, 
to share the pangs of hunger, of penury, of all the ills of 
which war is the father, — this alone is apt to weld diver- 
gent classes into a more homogeneous whole. But aside 
from that, there are other agencies at work throughout 
this long and bloody war tending to the same goal. No 
nation, no matter what its former idiosyncrasies, can pass 
through such a fiery furnace as has the people of Austria- 
Hungary ever since 1914 — and on the whole, of the large 
belligerents, none has paid such heavy toll in blood and 
treasure, in proportion to its population and means — 
without being powerfully altered. 

At any rate the serflike subservience of the lower 
classes in Austria-Hungary, which might have been 
noticed so generally up to 1914, has diminished to-day to 



DESCEIPTIONS ABOUT DUAL MONAECHY 15 

a considerable extent. Of that I saw many traces. Thus, 
the attitude of the soldiers towards their officers has 
changed. It is now a more purely human one. So has 
that of the serving class towards their employers, their 
' ' masters. ' ' Even the highly characteristic little phrases, 
indicating humility, absolute obedience, etc.; such as ''I 
kiss your hand, gracious lady," ''my obedient servitude 
to you, gracious master," have become rarer and rarer. 
And these are but surface indications. It will be a good 
thing for Austria and Hungary when Bobby Bums' ''A 
man's a man for a' that" will become truth there, and 
when one will no longer hear plaints all over that the 
only thing that counts is ''birth," connections, favourit- 
ism, nepotism, "protection," as the phrase there goes. It 
will make for the uplift of the whole polyglot mixture and 
eliminate one of the features most repulsive to an Amer- 
ican dwelling in the Dual Monarchy. 

There is so much good in the character of the people 
there, such treasures of affection, of compassion, of broad 
charity, of indulgence for the foibles of one's neighbour, 
such a bright joyousness and easy content, so much that 
is best in human nature, in fact, that one longs to see 
this charming people put on the highroad to good fortune 

once more. 

Eight here let me recall a conversation I had in Sep- 
tember, 1916, with the ex-Premier of Austria, Dr. Ernest 
von Koerber. In the course of it he expressed his high 
hope that after the war the American people would give 
aid and encouragement to the Dual Monarchy on the 
thorny path leading up to a re-establislmaent of prosper- 
ity. In particular he spoke of the yet undeveloped nat- 
ural resources of Austria and of the need of more cap- 
ital to develop them to the full. And I can only coincide 
in what this veteran statesman (one of the noblest figures 



16 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

in Austrian public life) said. Austria has become a pre- 
dominantly industrial country. Granted; but she suf- 
fers nevertheless from an insufficiency of liquid capital, 
and this condition, undeniable as it was before the war, 
will be greatly intensified after the restoration of peace. 
There lives in the Austrian people, and perhaps even in 
a still higher degree in the people of Hungary, an inex- 
haustible fund of sympathy, admiration, confidence and 
trust in the American people. Even the war has not been 
able to obliterate, or even diminish it. And it is shared 
by high and low alike. As for the pressing need of de- 
veloping her great natural resources, fallow to this hour 
to a great extent, there can be no question. While, just 
to mention one instance, it is true that in Bohemia (by 
all odds the richest, most progressive and best developed 
part of Austria) the resources of nature have been taken 
care of, so to speak, yet this is by no means the case in 
other parts of the monarchy. Bohemia, indeed, is the 
only exception. All the other regions are woefully be- 
hind. Even Upper Austria, one of the original "crown- 
lands" of the empire, requires capital and brains to ex- 
ploit it. The mines of the empire are not even located 
for the larger share. Geologically it is quite certain that 
there must be many more deposits of ore — ^iron, lead, 
mercury, zinc, silver, coal, pitchblende, etc.; there must 
also, geologically considered, be naphtha and petroleum 
in the Hungarian lowlands; the mountainous soil of 
Transylvania must be replete with valuable minerals, be- 
sides its present copper, coal, silver and gold mines, many 
of them worked to apparent exhaustion. Above all, the 
immense waterpower of the totally neglected Alpine lands 
of Carniola and Carinthia ought to prove sources of 
future wealth and industrial production. I recall the late 
incumbent of the United States in Vienna, Ambassador 



DESCEIPTIONS ABOUT DUAL MONAECHY 17 

Frederic C. Penfield, telling me after an extensive trip 
througli that district: ''What a pity! Millions and mil- 
lions going to waste there in those magnificent waterfalls 
and rapid mountain streams. They might be harnessed, 
like our own Niagara, to electricity." A great field, in- 
deed, for our American expert miners and engineers. 

And as it is in those respects, it is also in others in 
Austria-Hungary. I do not wish to convey to the reader 
the impression that Austria-Hungary in all its parts and 
in all the sections of its population is uncultivated, un- 
couth or behind the times. That would be a fatal error. 
Nothing could be farther from the truth. There are, 
without the slightest doubt, many men of high standing 
in every sphere of human activity, whether it be in 
science, in art, in modern technics, in industry or even 
in agriculture, commerce and finance. Of that, indeed, 
the world is quite aware. But there are not nearly 
enough of such men for the needs of the country as a 
whole. And they are labouring under one great disad- 
vantage : namely, the vast difference in the state of cul- 
ture that prevails in the various provinces of the Dual 
Monarchy. Official figures show that strikingly. Thus, 
in 1913 were published the census statistics for 1910 
bearing on education for the whole country. They re- 
vealed, among other things, the fact that illiteracy is still 
frightfully common there. Not, of course, in every prov- 
ince, but in the vast majority of these. The blackest 
picture in the list was presented by Dalmatia, where, in 
the inland portion, the illiteracy {i.e., the inability to 
read or write) percentage for all persons of over six 
years of age was 78. Close behind was Gralicia (a prov- 
ince of about eight million of population, whereas Dal- 
matia 's is only about 700,000) with 63 for the province as 
a whole. Things are not much better in other Slavic 



18 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

provinces, such as Carniola, Istria, Croatia and Slavonia, 
and even in the predominatingly Slav districts of Carin- 
thia, Styria, the Slovak sections of Hungary. The Ru- 
manians, too, are far behind in schooling and general in- 
telligence. Their agricultural methods smack strongly 
of the dark Middle Ages, and it is a question whether the 
potent grip that the Rumanian orthodox priesthood has 
on these simple and densely ignorant peasant folk be an 
unalloyed blessing. 

It is vastly different, of course, with other sections of 
the Dual Monarchy. Thus, Bohemia as a whole looms 
up again in the van of progress. The keen rivalry there 
between the Czech and the Teuton elements has had at 
least the one grateful result of producing, among all 
classes of population, a very high standard of popular 
education. School attendance (of course it is compulsory) 
is almost a full hundred per cent.; indeed it is slightly 
higher than in the purely German parts of Austria, such 
as Lower and Upper Austria, Styria, the Tyrol, and even 
exceeds that of the Saxons of Transylvania, though there 
and in the other sections mentioned the general diffu- 
sion of school knowledge and the means of acquiring a 
higher education are very good indeed. Nor can it be 
said that schools, colleges, technical institutions and uni- 
versities are on a low plane in the Dual Monarchy. As 
a matter of fact, they are based on the same rigorous 
system prevailing in Germany, and in most respects a de- 
gree obtained at the Universities of Vienna, of Graz, of 
Prague, of Czernowitz, Lemberg or Cracow means as 
much as one conferred by Berlin, Heidelberg, Munich or 
Leipzig. It may even be truthfully averred that in cer- 
tain domains of science some of the Austrian seats of 
learning lead the world. Such, for example, is the case 
with surgery in Vienna ; a fact made patent by the great 



DESCEIPTIONS ABOUT DUAL MONARCHY 19 

immber of post-graduates perfecting themselves in the 
aula and in the clinics and sanitariums of Vienna, — ^post- 
graduates hailing from every part of the world, not only 
from the United States, but also from Russia, the Balkan 
states, South and Central America, from England and 
Italy even. That is a fact which speaks for itself. In- 
deed the influx of such young practitioners from the coun- 
tries named shortly before the outbreak of the war was 
so great in number as to seriously interfere with the con- 
venience of the native students and to lead to vigorous re- 
monstrances by the latter. Of course, the war has 
changed all that. It is now the other way. In the second 
year of the war the attendance at the Vienna University 
had dropped from 10,800 to something below 5,000. But 
even under those circumstances I have it on the assur- 
ance of American doctors of the Red Cross that nowhere 
else were they able to profit so much from bold, original 
and successful methods of surgery as from those in 
Vienna. I shall recur to this feature of the case else- 
where in this book. In technics, too, Austria stands 
theoretically very high, and many important inventions 
had their origin there. But it is a curious corrobora- 
tion of what was said on that head before, that many of 
the best trained Austrian engineers had to go to South 
America or the United States to find remunerative fields, 
their opportunities at home, with lack of capital and en- 
terprise restricting them, being insufficient to hold them. 
Hungary proper also is by no means behind in these mat- 
ters. The University of Budapest is noted for its achieve- 
ments in various walks of science; and as to the school 
system, it is good, and the attendance, considering that 
the country is agricultural and distance often great, is 
surprisingly high. 
As to the cause of illiteracy predominating in most of 



20 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIEE 

the Slavic and Eumanian sections, it must not all be sad- 
dled on the central governments. In fact, the central 
governments have very little to do with it, since all the 
Slavic lands enjoy a large measure of autonomy, and the 
question of schooling is one over which the provincial 
chambers and diets have full control. But the Slavic 
populations (always excepting that of Bohemia) being, 
generally speaking, in a retarded state of development, 
both material and mental, the explanation lies rather 
there than elsewhere. Being economically inferior, too, 
the taxes imposed and the revenues drawn from provin- 
cial sources are often totally inadequate. Dalmatia, for 
instance, although styled a '* kingdom" in official par- 
lance, has all told scarcely the income of a medium-sized 
city in this country. 

It may be imagined under all these given circumstances 
that the woman question, so-called, which in more ad- 
vanced countries has been in a state of seething and 
feverish agitation, in Austria-Hungary has only just set 
in. But within the short period that the whole problem 
has been ventilated at all, tremendous progress has been 
made. Nor is this as surprising as at first blush it would 
appear. If one may generalise at all in the case of a popu- 
lation so heterogeneous and with conditions so widely 
differing, the woman of Austria-Hungary is bright, cheer- 
ful, rather more active and ambitious than the man, men- 
tally alert and possessing a strong influence over the 
other sex. Nowhere, it may be said, does her type in the 
Dual Monarchy approximate that of the Hausfrau in Ger- 
many proper. She is somewhat coquettish, of consider- 
able personal charm, endowed with a natural taste for 
art and the beautiful and graceful in life, knows how to 
dress and how to make the most of herself in every way; 
and while on the whole a good wife and mother, as she 



DESCRIPTIONS ABOUT DUAL MONAECHY 21 

certainly is an indulgent one, she is perhaps too attrac- 
tive (and feels herself to be so) to hide all those attrac- 
tions willingly within the folds of a strict and straight- 
laced matrimony. She is certainly far more conscious of 
her feminine charms than her sister in Germany. She is 
more sensual as well, naively so. Love, sexual affection, 
means much more to her than it does in other intellectu- 
ally advanced countries, and her ideals in life are not 
circumscribed as much as elsewhere in this workaday 
world. And let it be borne in mind that, with this at- 
tempt to outline her in her chief features, I have not only 
the woman of Vienna in my eye, but her less conspicu- 
ous sisters in the provinces and in Hungary as well. If 
anything, for example, the lady of Prague or of Buda- 
pest is more elegant, more *' alive," so to speak, than her 
Vienna sister, though the latter 's reputation be of ear her 
date and wider reach. Be that, however, as it may, certain 
it is that during the past ten years woman in Austria- 
Hungary has been travelling with great rapidity and 
notable success on the road that leads to a more equable 
apportioning of the rights and duties as well as the op- 
portunities of the sexes. And the war, as elsewhere, has 
accelerated the pace greatly. With millions of the men 
in the active period of life at the front or otherwise 
monopolised by war, it was inevitable that women old and 
young would have to fill places thus become vacant as 
well as they could. On the whole, too, they have acquitted 
themselves of their novel tasks in an admirable way. 
Much of this, it is true, will be but temporary ; but enough 
remains that may be termed permanent gain. Women 
and girls all through the Dual Monarchy are to-day found 
in positions of trust and responsibility ; as lawyers, as 
physicians, teachers, having charge of the management 
of large affairs, of big estates, of important business 



22 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

concerns. Millions of them earn the bread of indepen- 
dence as clerks, saleswomen, as government employes, as 
storekeepers, as butchers, bakers and candlestick makers, 
as chauffeurs, as drivers, as blacksmiths even, as street 
labourers and pavers, as gardeners and rustic labourers, 
as masons and bricklayers — in fact, as nearly everything 
to which, but a few years ago, none but males would have 
been called. The process was a gradual one ; but to-day 
it is just what I have described, and there is little doubt 
but what, even after the men return from the war, women 
will have proved themselves so efficient and serviceable 
that a very large proportion of them, at any rate, will re- 
main in their present positions. Inquiring here and 
there, and scanning the papers attentively, I observed 
very little dissatisfaction with the work women have had 
to take upon themselves under the stress of circum- 
stances. The above is, of course, but a sketchy treatment 
of a topic which it would alone require a whole volume to 
handle as its importance deserves, but lack of space for- 
bids going into the matter more in detail. 

It must be so also with another couple of subjects that 
can, at any rate, not be entirely overlooked. One of those 
is marriage, and, growing out of that, divorce and the 
problem of illegitimate offspring. I tread here, of that I 
am fully aware, on delicate ground ; nor is this the place 
to discuss the various phases quite frankly. Suffice it to 
say that in Austria, more than in Hungary (where liberal 
laws as to marriage and divorce obtain), the State in a 
certain sense discourages both marriage and divorce. 
Before marriage becomes possible the intended husband 
must demonstrate his ability to maintain a wife. This is 
further complicated by various other demands and re- 
strictions, some of them enforced by the civil, others by 
the ecclesiastical authorities. The Catholic Church in Aus- 



DESCBIPTIONS ABOUT DUAL MONAECHY 23 

tria recognises only one sufficient ground for the com- 
plete severance of the marital tie and for the right to re- 
marry, and that is the death of one or the other of the 
contracting parties. A complete annulment of the mar- 
riage relation being impossible under Catholic teachings, 
strictly enforced, the natural consequence is that hun- 
dreds of thousands annul the relation at least practically. 
For even a change of religion would not entitle the par- 
ties, under the law (at least in the vast majority of cases), 
to enter into a second union. Couples living apart from 
each other, however, enjoy a latitude in their social rela- 
tions which to the outsider seems amazing. Nor does the 
State in the least interfere. Now, with the middle and 
well-to-do or the aristocratic classes such a state of things 
does not entail by any means the same evil consequences 
it does with the proletariat. In the former case at least 
outward appearances of decency are more or less pre- 
served, and separation may not mean a plunge into 
viciousness or worse. It is far otherwise with the lower 
classes in city or country. It needs no imagination to per- 
ceive that. And thus it is that the hundreds of thousands 
of ill-matched couples in Austria of necessity, and as a 
correlative, produce hundreds of thousands of offspring 
bom out of wedlock. True, divorce itself, while rendered 
difficult and expensive by the State, may be decreed by 
the courts. But that is not a redress of the wrongs in- 
flicted on one part or the other. For it is only a separa- 
tion from bed and board. The stamp of illegitimacy is 
thus imprinted for life on thousands of guiltless children 
born every year. However, it is an unwritten law that 
where such deplorable conditions are the outcome of a 
state of things inherently unwise and, perhaps, morally 
wrong as well, the community as a whole views it with 
considerable leniency and does not visit, save in excep- 



24 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

tional cases, the sins of the parents on the unoffending 
heads of their offspring. So it is, too, in Austria. And 
so far indeed has this inductive reasoning proceeded in 
Austria and (in a less urgent degree) in Hungary, that 
the State itself has done much to remove the stigma oth- 
erwise attaching to lawless pairings and their illegitimate 
progeny. This was strikingly illustrated right at the out- 
break of the war. 

Of all parts of Austria the evil above referred to was 
and is worst in Vienna. This has become proverbial in 
the country. For how much of this the peculiarly gay 
and (in love matters) unrestrained character of the Vi- 
enna woman (otherwise so charming and, in a sense, re- 
fined and unselfish) is responsible, I know not; I am in- 
clined to think it is more owing to the general conditions 
of life at the Austrian capital and to the inevitable dan- 
gers and temptations of a huge city. At any rate, statis- 
tics prove that of the annual number of births in Vienna 
nearly thirty per cent, are illegitimate. This is about 
twice as high as for the whole of the Dual Monarchy, and 
fifty per cent, higher than for Austria alone. When, 
therefore, the war broke out and the question arose how 
to provide for the wives and children of the soldiers be- 
longing to the labouring classes, etc. (with whom, it would 
almost seem, illegitimate birth is rather the rule than the 
exception), in the absence of their bread-winners, the 
situation was greatly complicated by the enormous num- 
ber of these ''unwedded wives" and, often motherless or 
deserted, little ones. The matter was thoroughly dis- 
cussed, and the final result arrived at that equal provision 
and to the same amount in monthly financial aid, would 
have to be made for the benefit of those unfortunates be- 
longing to this second category. And so it was arranged. 
A problem which, it may well be believed, had stirred to 



DESOEIPTIONS ABOUT DUAL MONARCHY 25 

their depths the hearts of those quarters of Vienna where 
the turbulent socialist and labouring element dwells, was 
thus solved according to the dictates of humanity and 
common sense. And thus it has remained all through 
these three years of fierce war. 



CHAPTER n 

HOW THE DUAL MONABCHY BECAME V/HAT IT IS 

A motto in the Hofburg at Vienna — Growth in power of the Habsburgs 
due to fortunate marriages — Some heiresses — In the days of Maxi- 
milian and Charles V — The sun never set in their dominions — 
Rudolph the ancestor — How the Habsburgs permanently acquired 
the imperial dignity — ^A cunning forgery — The Tyrol and Trieste 
came by inheritance — ^Leading trait of the Magyars — Unbroken 
struggle for a thousand years — The Magyars held back the Turks — 
Magna Charta of King Andrew II — ^Maria Theresa's pitiful plea 
to her Hungarian lieges — The days of 1848 — ^Kossuth and Gorgey — 
The Ausgleich and how it was brought about — Jealousy and dis- 
trust between Austria and Hungary — Has stood the test of time — 
The wrongs of the Czechs — Cheated out of their constitutional 
rights — Even their language suppressed — The Hradsheen and the 
imperial counsellors — How Czech hatred of Austria arose — A par- 
liamentary fight of fifty years. 

In- the throne room of the Hofburg at Vienna, the 
quaintest and most ancient of the still existing royal resi- 
dences in Europe, the eye meets, here and there, embossed 
or in intricately twined gilt lettering, the mystic dictum 
of the Habsburgs — A E 1 U. It stands for the proud 
boast : Austria erit in orhe ultima; Austria will last for- 
ever. Is it a vain boast ? The man who first adopted it as 
the motto of his house, the Emperor Frederick III, in 
1443, surely did not think so. He and his after him, and 
quite a number before him, for generations and genera- 
tions had brought Austria out of slight and humble begin- 

26' 



HOW DUAL MONAECHY BECAME WHAT IT IS 27 

nings up to the zenith of power, to the very top of earthly 
splendour. 

For there cannot be any doubt about it: the peculiar 
policy of the house of Habsburg for centuries had in the 
end been almost uniformly successful. The keynote to 
this policy, a matrimonial one so to speak, had been neatly 
hit off by a medieval court poet when he, in the last line 
of a distich, advised the Habsburgs to still adhere to it : 
Tu, felix Austria, nube! To wed heiresses of broad lands, 
that was, for a long, long period, the chief method of 
steady aggrandisement, of territorial expansion. It was 
by contracting a union with Margaret of Tyrol (sur- 
named, somewhat naively, Maultasch, i.e., she of the 
drooping mouth) that that much-coveted bridge to Italy 
fell into the possession of the Habsburgs. It was again 
by matrimonial alliances that Styria, Carniola and Carin- 
thia fell to the Habsburg sceptre. Most important of all, 
it was by marriages arranged for his granddaughter and 
grandson that the Emperor Maximilian (most gifted, 
chivalrous and sympathetic, though somewhat erratic 
scion of the whole line) secured to his house, towards the 
close of the 15th and the dawn of the 16th century, a glori- 
ous patrimony — Spain, the half of Italy and the entire 
Netherlands. And his grandson, the Emperor Charles V, 
it was for whom first the saw was coined that ''the sun 
never set in his dominions." For as King of Spain his 
conquistadores, the Cortez and Pizarros and all their 
tribe, won fresh empires in the New World; won untold 
wealth in gold and treasure. They made this lucky 
Charles the mightiest potentate in the world and first 
tapped for him the inexhaustible mines of Peru and Mex- 
ico. And meanwhile this same Charles, wearing the im- 
perial crown of Germany, was faced one day, at the Diet 
of Worms, by a bold yet simple monk, one Martin Luther, 



28 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

who told him up and down: ''I cannot otherwise, God 
help me!" and demanded church reform, ''in head and 
limbs, " as he phrased it. And as this plain-spoken monk 
thus bearded the majestic lion in his den, he probably had 
not even the slightest glimmering of the truth that it was, 
in fact, this religious split in Germany and in the Aus- 
trian possessions which, in the end, was to lead to vast 
diminution of power for Germany, for the emperor, for 
Austria, this religious split of which Martin Luther was 
the harbinger, the unwitting instrument in the hands of 
Providence. 

So, then, without attempting to give here even an ab- 
breviated history of the Habsburgs (of whose doings I 
speak more extensively in another chapter) or of Austria- 
Hungary, it is yet necessary to dwell a little more par- 
ticularly on the ways and means employed in swelling, 
almost without a break, the size and resources of what is 
now known as the Dual Monarchy. 

In 1273 it was that the noted forbear, Rudolph of Habs- 
burg (whose surname really was a contraction of Ha- 
hichtshuvg, i.e., the burg, the castle, of the Hdbicht, the 
hawk, situated in the Aargau, now forming a part of re- 
publican Switzerland and in a most disgraceful state of 
decay, as I saw with my own eyes) first started the Habs- 
burgs on their brilliant career. For, after a lengthy in- 
terregnum, during which the imperial crown of Germany 
had gone a-begging, being scorned by Richard of Corn- 
wall, an Enghshman, and by a Castilian don as well, the 
seven electors of the "Holy Roman Empire of the Teu- 
tonic Nation" finally made choice of this small Count Ru- 
dolph to wear the glittering bauble. For Count Rudolph 
of the Habichtsburg had lorded it up to that hour over 
but a rather restricted and insignificant domain, situate 
partly in Alsace, partly in Switzerland and Suabia, a ter- 



I 



HOW DUAL MONAECHY BECAME WHAT IT IS 29 

ritory altogether measuring but a couple of hundred 
square miles and yielding revenues none too ample. But 
prudent and peace-loving and shrewd in his dealings this 
Habsburg ancestor undeniably was, and by defeating the 
rebellious Ottocar of Bohemia in a pitched battle on the 
plains near Vienna and wholly overcoming him, this wise 
Eudolph, after the death of the doughty Ottocar, laid 
claims to the sovereignty of the Ostmark, or Eastern 
Marches, first established by Charlemagne as a protective 
wall against the heathen Avars and Magyars. And out 
of this pitiful nucleus, the small and but thinly populated 
Ostmark, Austria has grown and developed. 

True, subsequently the Habsburgs lost most of their 
ancient patrimony on older German soil by the rising of 
the original Swiss cantons. The latter, tyrannised over 
by the hot-headed Albrecht, Rudolph's rash descendant, 
gained their independence, partially at least. And later 
they won it wholly. But as I intimated in the foregoing, 
the Habsburgs did much more than make good their 
losses in this lengthy strife with obstreperous Swiss 
mountaineers by adding, little by little, to their Austrian 
lands in the east. To this task these earlier Habsburgs 
devoted all the astuteness their brains were capable of, 
all the patience and all the foresight of a cunning spider. 
This task, that of gaining steadily new accretions to 
their territory, quite sensibly appeared to the most of 
them a far more weighty one than obtaining or keeping 
the imperial electoral crown. Only one of them, another 
Rudolph of Habsburg, who had married, at the early age 
of nineteen, a daughter of the Emperor Charles IV (who 
was himself, though, of the Luxemburg house and also 
chosen King of Bohemia), had the ambition to be entitled 
at least to the rights of an imperial elector. So eager was 
he, indeed, for this empty honour, that he did not scruple 



30 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

to engage in an elaborate stratagem for the purpose, part 
and parcel of which was barefaced forgery. Finally, a 
sort of compromise was acceded to. It was this same Ru- 
dolph who founded the University of Vienna and began 
to build the present structure of St. Stephen's Cathedral 
there, in 1356. It was in 1437 when the Emperor Sigis- 
mund died, the same who by right of inheritance had be- 
come King of Hungary as well as of Bohemia, without 
leaving a son. His successor then was Albert of Austria, 
husband of his daughter. Albert the Habsburger next, 
in 1438, was elected Emperor, and thus we see for the first 
time the union of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia accom- 
plished under an Imperial head of the Habsburg line. 
From that time, too, the crown of the Empire remained 
in the family. However, the elder line, the Austrian 
branch, became extinct in 1457, and the Styrian, next of 
kin, came in, bringing with them their sovereign territor- 
ies of Carinthia, Carniola, the Tyrol, and the City of 
Trieste (with immediate vicinity), affording an outlet to 
the sea. All this besides Styria, itself a good-sized bit of 
land. 

It would require a great deal more space than is here 
at my disposal to relate all the ups and downs of the 
Habsburgs from this time on until the present. But a few 
more facts must at least be mentioned. Thus, for a time 
the sovereignty of both Bohemia and Hungary slipped 
again out of the grasp of the Habsburgs. And it was ow- 
ing to the successful matrimonial policy of the Habsburg 
emperor Maximilian, to which I referred before, that, 
after the disaster of Mohacs (in 1526) and the death of 
King Louis of Hungary there, the two crowns were finally 
reunited under the Habsburgs. What independence Bo- 
hemia had still enjoyed by her turn in fortune she lost 
completely by the battle of the White Mountain near 



HOW DUAL MONAECHY BECAME WHAT IT IS 31 

Prague, in 1620, and during the Thirty Years' War and 
the religious persecution which it engendered. The so- 
called *' counter-reformation," under Jesuit direction en- 
gineered from Vienna, nowhere wrought its evil courses 
with greater sternness and persistence than in Bohemia, 
at last completely stamping out Protestantism and racial 
aspirations, at least for 200 years. 

The case was different in Hungary, largely because of 
the different temper and racial characteristics of the 
dominant element there, the Magyars.! Through all vicis- 
situdes and through all political changes that country ex- 
perienced, it retained its strong spirit of independence. 
Not only that but it also remained (save for a short period 
under the Emperor Leopold I) an elective monarchy, not- 
withstanding that her statesmen recognised the heredi- 
tary claims of the Habsburgs. Politically speaking, the 
outstanding trait of the Magyar is indeed his love of na- 
tional independence. Like a scarlet thread it runs 
through all the woof of his existence as a nation. Con- 
pled with a stubborn will and an extraordinary skill in 
assimilating other racial fragments, there is a ruthless 
political craft, and fate had ordained that when his con- 
quering hosts first swept down into ancient Pannonia, 
into the lowlands of the middle Danube, of the Theiss and 
Maros, they drove an irresistible wedge into what other- 
wise would have been solidly Slavic soil. It gave the 
Magyar, though numerically inferior, something which 
alone made it possible for him to play for a thousand 
years the successful role of the conqueror ; namely, a thea- 
tre of action so centrally located that of necessity the sur- 
rounding Slav remnants of nations had to become accre- 
tions nnder his rule, had to help crystallise a Magyar en- 
tity. The Magyar, in fact, was the kernel, strong though 
small in number, and indomitably, through all the turbu- 



32 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

lent vicissitudes of a long national history, the Magyar 
(pronounced: Mad'yar) fulfilled his self -arrogated his- 
torical mission of maintaining the land of his fathers as a 
stout bulwark of European, of Western, of Christian civi- 
lisation against the ceaseless onrush of the Moslem 
hordes. With Magyar valour indeed, the bulwark of Occi- 
dental culture, full of fissures and breaches as it mostly 
was, would have succumbed on several occasions. In the 
days of the great Soliman it came near falling a prey to 
Turkish lust of conquest, for the might of the Padishah 
was then, early in the 16th century, at its zenith. 

But not Hungary and the Magyar alone — Austria, too, 
bore her share in this defensive contest with the fanatical 
Turk, a contest gathering momentum for centuries and 
then as slowly ebbing off. As late as 1683, we all remem- 
ber, Vienna almost fell before a giant Moslem army, and 
the memories of that siege and of the final rescue is even 
at this day very vivid in the gay capital of the Danube, 
since local chronicles have served to perpetuate it. 

The ''Turkish Peril" is past. No longer does it 
threaten the Occident. From haughty assailant attempt- 
ing world conquest the Turk for generations had to be 
content with the inglorious part of Europe's ''Sick 
Man," though of late he has seemingly risen from his 
sickbed. But at any rate, this much is certain, that our 
Western, our Christian, our milder, more complex and 
less predatory civilisation was largely preserved by Hun- 
gary and Austria. For four centuries the men of these 
two countries dauntlessly fought against the barbarian 
throngs that were launched ever anew, from the seat of 
Moslem power at Stamboul, for destruction and devasta- 
tion, and let us not forget that the last dangerous Turk 
irruption, that of 1683, had been brought about very 
largely by the machinations and promises of his "Most 



HOW DUAL MONARCHY BECAME WHAT IT IS 33 

Christian Majesty," Louis XIV, the Roi Soleil of Ver- 
sailles, he, the bitterest foe of the Habsburgs. The civili- 
sation of our days owes indubitably a vast debt of grati- 
tude to Hungary and Austria on that account, an histori- 
cal debt never liquidated. The greater part of that debt 
is owing to the Magyars, but a not inconsiderable fraction 
goes to the share of Austria and the Habsburgs as well. 
It may also be maintained that it has been in great meas- 
sure due to the numberless enforced wars both Hungary 
and Austria had to wage against the ever-present '^ Turk- 
ish peril" that the Austria-Hungary of our own day has 
not progressed farther on the road to genuine prosperity 
and enlightened civic liberty. These Turkish wars kept 
both countries for several centuries in turmoil and strife. 
They were much the cause of their turbulent history. 
They were a perpetual drain on their blood and treasure. 
They hampered their progress and their peaceable consol- 
idation enormously. Many of the ablest and most patri- 
otic Hungarians and Austrians perished on the battlefield 
fighting the warriors of Islam, and not a few of the best 
Magyar rulers even did so. If Hungary and Austria had 
no other claims to our thanks than that, at least this one 
must be conceded by all impartial men. 

However, it is time to go back to our sketchy outline 
of the evolution of the Dual Monarchy. 

It would be foreign to my purpose to trace all the turns 
in the tortuous story. Austria's close connection with 
Hungary dates, as I pointed out, from 1526. Since that 
time, though, there were periods of shorter or longer du- 
ration when Hungary, either wholly or in part, escaped 
the clutch of the Habsburgs. It must be recalled that 
Hungary was an elective kingdom, and under the Magna 
Charta granted her by the famous ruler, Andrew II, in 
1222, she was even a constitutional one. Indeed, it is 



34 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE _ 

noteworthy that in this ''Golden Bull," seven centuries 
ago, the rights of the people were so generously appor- 
tioned that even the "right of forcible resistance" (with- 
out entailing the charge of high treason) against en- 
croachments or usurpation of royal prerogatives was 
therein specifically set forth. Thus it was that again and 
again the diet or the estates of Hungary exercised to the 
full their rights in choosing somebody other than a Habs- 
burg for their King. John Hunyady and his son, the 
doughty Matthias Corvinus, were among the earlier and 
highly popular kings of native stock. The latter even, in 
1485, marched against the Habsburg emperor, Frederick, 
and actually seized Vienna. 

But even after the more intimate union brought about 
in 1526, there were times of estrangement, of stress, of 
rebellion more or less lasting or critical. Ferdinand of 
Austria, though acknowledged king by the larger number 
of the great Hungarian nobles, for many years, after the 
battle of Mohacs, had to contend with a rival king, John 
Zapolya, a formidable warrior of Slav origin. And later, 
in the early and again in the middle part of the 17th cen- 
tury, several great Magyar rebels (whose names even to- 
day are household words throughout Hungary) such as 
Bethlen Gabor, Francis and George Rakoczy, are heard 
of. Emeric Tokoly, too, during the reign of the Emperor 
Leopold I (1657-1705), was one of those bold leaders 
against Habsburg rule. Much of all this rivalry and in- 
ternal strife, however, was owing to Turkish instigation, 
especially during the period when Transylvania was still 
held by the Turks after a fashion. It subsided after 
Transylvania had been added to the Austrian crown, and 
the last ruler of Transylvania, Prince Michael Apafy, 
ended his days ingloriously in his Vienna exile, about 
1707. 



HOW DUAL MONAECHY BECAME WHAT IT IS 35 

The next serious trouble arose when Maria Theresa, 
daughter of the Emperor Charles VI, under the provi- 
sions of the Pragmatic Sanction, laboriously obtained by 
her father from the estates of Hungary, Bohemia and 
other parts of the monarchy, actually ascended the throne 
in 1739 and had her rights of succession at once forcibly 
disputed by King Frederick of Prussia and the Elector 
of Bavaria. It should be said here that the fundamental 
law of Hungary, the Golden Bull of King Andrew II, had 
been several times modified in the course of five centuries, 
and that it had been treated more or less as obsolete ever 
since the accession of the Habsburgs. For one thing, the 
clause granting the right of forcible resistance to the sub- 
jects of the crown had been solemnly and repeatedly elim- 
inated from the original text. 

Maria Theresa, though, was a wise and energetic ruler. 
In sorry danger of losing her throne she appealed per- 
sonally to the Hungarian parliament, clasping her infant 
son to her breast. In Latin, then the state and public 
tongue of Hungary, she pleaded her dire case, and the in- 
born chivalry of the Magyars caught fire. Flashing their 
sabres in the sunlit breeze on the Coronation Hill at 
Presburg (now officially termed Poszony), they shouted 
with one voice : Moriamur pro nostra rege, Maria Ther- 
esa! In short, they crowned her their "king,'* and she 
rode boldly up the steep path swinging her sword to the 
four quarters and calling out the symbolical oath of fealty 
to her people. This was in 1740, and it was 127 years 
later, in 1867, that the Emperor Francis Joseph suffered 
the ceremony of a special coronation as King of Hun- 
gary to be repeated in his own person. All the interven- 
ing rulers had scorned to do so, although the constitution 
of Hungary solemnly provides for it. It was largely due 
to the loyalty of her Hungarian and Croatian subjects 



36 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

that the Empress Maria Theresa was in the end able to 
keep her crown, even against such a military genius as 
Frederick the Great. It did not hinder the fact, however, 
that the same Maria Theresa curtailed the constitutional 
rights of Hungary as much as she dared, and that her son 
and successor, Joseph II, did likewise. 

Another century elapsed. The terrific shaking up of 
the Napoleonic era had left Austria-Hungary impover- 
ished, but, thanks to the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, oth- 
erwise not much the worst, with her territories restored 
and on Italian soil even enlarged. Hungary all this time 
had been treated as an integral portion of the Austrian 
domain, not as an independent, sovereign realm. A pe- 
riod of repression set in under the unspeakable Mephis- 
topheles of Europe, Prince Clemens Metternich, the Aus- 
trian statesman who tried to turn back the wheel of time 
to absolutism and a shackled public life. But in 1848, when 
France had turned out Louis Philippe and even Berlin 
had risen against the Hohenzollerns, the Magyars once 
more rose in rebellion. This time they wanted separation, 
independence, freedom. They beat the Austrian generals 
in the field, but Nicholas I of Russia interposed, ^'for the 
sake of the principle of divine rulership, " as he expressed 
it. And to Russia, not to Austria, Gorgey, the ablest mili- 
tary leader of the Hungarians, with his last legions sur- 
rendered at Vilagos in August, 1849. Kossuth, the dicta- 
tor, fled first to Turkey, next to America, and Haynau, 
the "hyena," held high revel among the defeated Hun- 
garians, hanging, shooting, jailing them by thousands. 

Then reactionism followed. The young emperor, Fran- 
cis Joseph, under the tutelage of his stern mother, the 
Archduchess Sophia, once more tried the old Habsburg 
remedy : suppression of liberty in every form, a gagged 
press, abolition of representative government. , But 1866 



HOW DUAL MONARCHY BECAME WHAT IT IS 37 

came. Austria was whipped by Prussia at Koniggratz. 
Austria, hitherto exercising hegemony in Germany, had 
to step aside and let Prussia smash the old effete German 
Federation and erect a new and more efficient structure in 
its stead. The war of 1870-71 intervened. And with it 
Austria's last hope of re-establishing her power over 
Germany was gone. The new German Empire became a 
fact. 

Even before this last event came to pass, Austria by 
the stroke of genius, or else — as many take it — ^by the ill- 
fated hand, of Count Beust, a second-rate statesman and 
brilliant diplomat, put herself on an entirely new basis. 
For Count Beust, who from being the guiding spirit of 
little Saxony had been called in by Francis Joseph as the 
best expert he could think of, created that wonderful 
Ausgleich between Austria and Hungary which is still in 
force at this hour. Ausgleich is a German word which 
means ''compromise" ; and that it truly was. For it did 
not fully satisfy the Hungarians, inasmuch as it granted 
but a limited autonomy to Hungary instead of a perfect 
one, and it met also with the disapproval of large sections 
of the Austrian peoples. In. Hungary indeed the Aus- 
gleich fell far short of expectations of the Independence 
(or 48er) Party, which was and is much stronger than its 
mere representation in Parliament would suggest, since 
it embodies the real and instinctive feelings of the masses 
towards Austria. And in Austria again there has been 
engendered by it a rather widespread sentiment of down- 
right hostility towards the more fortunate half of the 
monarchy. Indeed, jealousy of Hungary's wider share of 
political freedom and political influence, more than com- 
mensurate with Hungary's smaller size and population 
and economic development, possesses the breast of the 
average Austrian, a direct consequence of the Ausgleich 



38 AUSTEIA-HUNaARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

which made Hungary unquestionably from a former ap- 
pendage or dependency the dominating part of the whole. 
This sentiment of mutual dislike and distrust has cropped 
out on a number of vital occasions throughout the present 
war. But it has not hindered the fact that Hungary, ever 
since 1867, has steadily climbed upward, not only in the 
matter of political influence and internal consolidation 
(despite the racial strife which, there also, has been caus- 
ing much trouble), but in economic prosperity as well. 
For the economic aspects of the Ausgleich have been of 
even greater importance than the political ones. About 
these things more is said elsewhere. Here I merely state 
the broad facts. 

Nevertheless, the Ausgleich has stood the test of time. 
It has borne the frequent strain of strong tendencies on 
both sides of the Leitha (the frontier stream dividing 
Hungary from Austria) making ever for separation and 
partition. There were, it is true, periods when a total 
break seemed imminent, when in Hungary the distinctly 
anti- Austrian elements were consciously working towards 
that end. Such a period, for example, was the one of 
1897 to 1907, the economic situation and the question of 
the proper quota towards the government being the pre- 
text, and when the thin wedge of separation nearly caused 
a split. The compromise of 1867 weathered the long 
crisis because on the whole it is based on the well-under- 
stood interests of both countries, and because the two 
largest parties in Parliament, the Constitutional one un- 
der the guidance of Count Julius Andrassy and the Lib- 
eral one (now in power) led by Count Stephen Tisza, per- 
ceived that clearly and counselled moderation. Thus, on 
the whole, Hungary entered the war by the side of Aus- 
tria fairly a unit, fairly convinced that the preservation 
of the Dual Monarchy, viewed as a whole, was well worth 



HOW DUAL MONARCHY BECAME WHAT IT IS 39 

fighting for, and suppressing old-time sympathies and 
antipathies. For np to the outbreak of the war Hungarian 
sympathies, individually felt, had been rather Franco- 
phile and Anglophile. Of that there could be no doubt. 
It was dire necessity that made the Hungarian the com- 
panion-in-arms not only of the Austrian, his quondam op- 
pressor, but of the German, with whom he had ever been 
united by very little fellow-feeling, since his whole mental 
and moral habitus antagonises the Teuton conception of 
life and its ideals. 

It was not so with the Czechs of the monarchy, how- 
ever. Of all the Slavs living under the shadow of the 
Austrian double-eagle, the Czech does so most unwil- 
lingly. The long history of this, the most gifted and en- 
ergetic of all the Slav tribes, goes far to explain this 
strong and undying hatred of his Austrian master. I 
must confess that I, prior to my long residence in Vienna, 
had failed to grasp the underlying causes of Czech dis- 
content, although repeated previous visits of shorter du- 
ration to beautiful Bohemia had certainly acquainted me 
with the fact of its existence. History explains much. 
Ever since the Czech people first emerged from the dim 
light of legendary lore, from the days of fabled Libussa 
on, it met the racially so different, so much more numer- 
ous, so much better organised German in its path. From 
the early Middle Ages up to fifty years ago, the Czech was 
the helot, the hewer of wood and drawer of water. Ever 
the German, wherever he came in contact with him and 
wherever he tried to compete, had the best of it. German 
superiority and greater efficiency, and the impotence of 
the Slav to make headway against it, already led Duke 
Boleslav, ages and ages ago, to issue a decree for the ex- 
pulsion of all Germans from Bohemia. But it was in 
vain. The more potent German prevailed. And it was 



40 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

owing all along to the peculiar Slav nature and Slav 
modes of life of the Czech. From prehistoric times on the 
Czech, like all Slavs, has been a tiller of the soil — ^not a 
warrior, not a herdsman, a hunter, a builder of and dwel- 
ler in towns, not a mechanic, a trader, a craftsman. In 
all these points the German was much more than his 
match. The Czech towns in Bohemia owed their rise and 
prosperity to the German colonist without whom there 
would have been no commerce, no artisan skill, no or- 
ganised government in his own land. The German, in 
short, was indispensable to Czech material welfare and 
the development of Bohemia, after the breaking down of 
the great Slav confederation of Svatopluk of Moravia. 
The Czech rulers of Bohemia were forced to acknowledge 
it. They could not do without the aid, the enterprise, the 
steady industry of their Teuton guests, subjects, allies, 
citizens, and builders. Any number of Czech ** bulls," 
decrees, letters of privilege, etc., attest the fact, from 
about 900 A.D. till the 16th and 17th century and even 
later. 

Then, on top of this hateful feeling of inferiority that 
had lived darkly in the simple Slav soul of the Czech for 
so long, came the trickery first, then the fiendish cruelty 
and systematic persecution of the Habsburgs, once Bo- 
hemia had passed under their sway. The Czechs had 
ancient historic rights to have their country held an inde- 
pendent sovereign kingdom, just as much as had the Mag- 
yars. When the Habsburgs, in 152G, by inheritance, 
finally got a firm hold on Bohemia, they pledged them- 
selves to uphold and defend the dignity of Bohemia as a 
separate and distinct nation. They broke those solemn 
vows. They governed Bohemia as a mere dependency. 
They evaded coronation ceremonies, a symbolic act which 
meant so much in those days, or flatly refused to have 



HOW DUAL MONAECHY BECAME WHAT IT IS 41 

tbemselves crowned as distinct kings of Bohemia. The 
country, weakened and devastated by the century-long 
Hussite wars, waged partly for a purer faith and partly 
for national Kberty, was made the grazing spot for Habs- 
burg favourites, creatures of the court of Vienna. Worse, 
for with the day, in 1618, when the Czech rebels flung out 
of the window of the Hradsheen in Prague the imperial 
counsellors, an act which started the sanguinary Thirty 
Years' War, Bohemia was steeped in blood and ruin. 
The Hussite heresy, under the direction of the Jesuit 
confessor of the Emperor Ferdinand, was stamped out 
in woe and waste. Bohemia for the next two hundred 
years was a land of desolation, her peasants serfs, her 
native nobility destroyed and expropriated, her rights 
and prerogatives denied and disregarded. The very lan- 
guage, Czech, was tabooed. 

How can one wonder at the fact that such sowing could 
only bring in the end a bitter harvest of hate ? 

When Vienna rose against her absolutist government 
in 1848, when all Hungary rose, all the Italian possessions 
of the Habsburgs, Prague rose likewise. But the rising 
was stifled by the military. Then came 1866, the defeat 
of the Habsburgs on the battlefield, and the last slender 
link that had bound Bohemia to Germany's fortunes 
broke forever. Austria, under Count Beust, had to tread 
new ways, and peace was made with Hungary ; peace was 
also sought for with Bohemia. But the Czechs were not so 
gullible as of yore. They deliberately resolved to win 
their own salvation by their own efforts. Ever since 
1867 they have been engaged in an unvarying parlia- 
mentary campaign leading, they trusted, to independ- 
ence and complete autonomy (under a king of their own 
who might also call himself Emperor of Austria if he 
chose), under a constitution of their own, under laws of 



42 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

their own, seeking national prosperity once more. All 
this was denied them. Under Hohenwart, under Taaffe, 
it is quite true, the central government at Vienna made 
some concessions, in the matter of the use of Czech as an 
administrative language and in the matter of internal 
government mainly, but the Czechs were not satisfied. 
They wanted more, much more. 

The whole Czech problem is bristling with difficulties. 
For it is complicated unfortunately by the fact that Bohe- 
mia is, it must be conceded, a favoured region by nature, 
but not inhabited by a homogeneous people. Of its total 
population of almost seven million, some three millions 
nearly are of German stock, and the latter are even to- 
day the more progressive and wealthier part. In the 
struggle for preservation of their own language and race, 
those German Bohemians are necessarily deeply opposed 
to their Czech fellow-countrymen who are doing their 
best to Czechisise them. It is this feature of the case 
which makes a final and satisfactory solution so over- 
poweringly hard. Geographically and tactically consid- 
ered, the Czechs, as they have the advantage of superior 
numbers, have also the advantage of occupying the core, 
the very heart of Bohemia. Being an agricultural race, 
the Czechs settled — in the dim, distant past, probably 
about the year 450 A.D. — ^in the flat and fertile lowland 
forming the centre of the country, while the Bohemians 
of Teutonic stock dwell in a semi-circle around them in 
the mountainous and densely wooded ridges that border 
on Saxony to the north, on Bavaria to the west, and on 
German-speaking Upper Austria to the east and south. 
In fact, they are hemmed in on every side by their racial 
foes, the men of German stock. In addition to that, the 
portions of Bohemia settled by Germans are most valu- 
able industrially, for they contain the mines, the forests. 



HOW DUAL MONAECHY BECAME WHAT IT IS 43 

and the water power, hence are the home of Austria's 
most prosperous manufactures. 

And thus it is that for fifty years past the Czechs have 
wrought patiently by day and night to achieve their ter- 
ritorial and political independence, and have failed. 
Every Austrian statesman during that long time has 
tried his wits at the conundrum, praising this or that new 
remedy — and has equally failed. And thus it is that the 
Czechs entered this war with the sting of abasement, 
with disloyalty in their hearts. 



CHAPTEE in 

UNIQUE FEATUEES FORMING PAET OF THE PROCESS 

Owing to the widely differing dates when the component parts of Aus- 
tria-Hungary were acquired, there are also great differences in their 
social and intellectual development — The scale runs from almost 
primitive conditions to highest civilisation — Originally the whole of 
Austrian territory was inhabited by Slavs and Celts — Hungary was 
Ancient Pannonia of the Romans; Austria was Norieum; Vienna 
was Vindobona, a Roman camp in the midst of Celt savages — Race 
and national feeling of comparatively recent rise — Bukovina and 
Transylvania as model exemplars — A unique feature is the unim- 
paired aboriginal character of the various populations — Reasons for 
it — With the single exception of the Magyar Kingdom, the Austrian 
and Hungarian "lands" are nothing but fragments of former power- 
ful political entities — The East Marches, or Ostmark, and Teutonis- 
ing colonisation — Racial renascence of the Slovenes — There was 
never any serious attempt made to weld the incongruous fractions 
into a homogeneous whole — The population of Latin stock and the 
Ladiners — How to differentiate. 

It is not astonisMng that so little is generally known 
outside Austria-Hungary of the real conditions under 
which the queer assortment of races and ''nationalities" 
live that compose the whole. For the subject is an in- 
tricate one and full of pitfalls to the uninitiated stranger 
trying to grope his way through the labyrinth. Even in 
Germany, despite the centuries-old political and economic 
relations connecting that country with Austria-Hungary, 
and despite the grave importance which the matter has 
assumed since the two countries became close allies, the 

44 



UNIQUE FEATURES OF PART OF PROCESS 45 

deepest ignorance and tlie most curious misapprehension 
very commonly prevail as to the inner mechanism of the 
Dual Monarchy, In the course of the war many editorial 
utterances in some of the leading journals of Germany 
have betrayed this lack of knowledge, and not a few of 
them gave deep offence in Austria-Hungary when the 
contrary impression had been intended. Not even China, 
another land of mysteries, is so universally misunder- 
stood and misjudged as is Austria-Hungary. And the 
cause of it lies in good part in the fact that the theme is 
really very complicated. Some of the errors most widely 
held it is the purpose of this chapter to clear up. 

Thus, the fact most amazing to the stranger endeavour- 
ing to understand Austria-Hungary, namely, the enor- 
mous differences in the scale of civilisation obtaining 
there, from almost primitive conditions to the highest 
range of social and intellectual culture, is easily accounted 
for. It is necessary to keep in mind the genesis of the 
Dual Monarchy of to-day. The various provinces and 
'4ands" making it up were acquired at different times, 
many of them by peaceful methods (by marriage con- 
tracts, by inheritance, by election, by statecraft, etc.), 
others by conquest. The period of these acquisitions runs 
between 1273 and 1908. Or rather, if the first beginning 
of Austria is included, it goes back to still remoter 
times. For it was during the reign of Charlemagne, 
about 800 A.D., that that great Prankish ruler first 
founded the Ostmarh, or Eastern Marches, as a bulwark 
against the marauding irruptions of the Avars, forerun- 
ners and next of kin to the Magyars, and out of this 
Ostmark has grown Austria. Charlemagne first put a 
Markgraf (or Count of the March) in power there, and 
subsequently the Babenbergs, a Frankish (Middle Ba- 
varian) line, ruled there as dukes, and with their ex- 



46 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

tinction and the defeat and death on the battlefield of 
the other claimant, Ottocar of Bohemia, the Habsburgs, 
in 1273, took their start. Bosnia and Hercegovina, as all 
readers remember, were not annexed till 1908, and the 
Bukovina, for instance, was not won for Austria till the 
reign of Emperor Joseph II, in the latter part of the 18th 
century, after his defeating the Turks who had held 
sovereignty of it. In the Bukovina and in Transylvania, 
too, both of them domains of great natural attractions 
and resources, though sorely neglected, one may study to 
advantage the racial make-up of each. Bukovina 
(which is Euthenian for ''Land of the Beeches") is but 
the size of one of our smaller New England states, with 
a population of 500,000. Yet it shows remarkable variety 
of scenery and population. For besides the German- 
speaking farming colonies whom Joseph II induced to 
settle there and who own some of the best farm lands 1 

but do not comprise more than a population all told of 
about 80,000 or less, there is the Rumanian element in 
the southeast (adjoining Rumania proper), forming 
about the most retrograde in the whole monarchy, but 
intensely picturesque in all their ancient customs and 
mode of living; then the Ruthenian (or Ukrainian) 
population, in the east and north; the Polish (small but 
influential by wealth and landed property) ; the large 
Jewish element, and finally the small Magyar admixture, 
towards the Western portion. These all hold separate 
religious views — ^the Rumanians being Greek Orthodox; 
the Ruthenians again "United Catholics" (a compromise 
between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church and 
acknowledging the supremacy of the Pope) ; the Jews, 
of course, Hebrews; the Germans, mostly Protestants; 
and the Magyars, Roman Catholics. And as in religion 
they also vary greatly in degree of culture. Besides, the 



UNIQUE FEATURES OF PART OF PROCESS 47 

Ruthenians gravitate more or less towards Russia, the 
Riunaiiiaiis .towards Rumania, the Magyars towards 
Hungary, and only the small fragments of Jews and 
Germans were loyally Bukovinians, without any political 
after-thought ; and only they, for the most part, make use 
of the excellent higher schools at the capital of the 
province, a charming town called Czemovitz, and of the 
small but in every sense very efficient university located 
there. Then in scenery there are the fertile bottom lands 
of the Pruth, the Sereth and Dniester; there are grand- 
iose mountain ranges covered with virgin forest and there 
are Alpine glaciers — all within a distance of a few miles. 
In Transylvania, another province (now belonging to the 
St. Stephen's Crown of Hungary) wrested from Turkey 
a couple of centuries ago, conditions are very similar. 
In that Switzerland of the Southeast there are two 
universities, much wealth, much mining and engineering, 
side by side with intense ignorance and penury. Illiteracy 
predominates, as I pointed out elsewhere, in a number of 
the most backward provinces, such as Galicia, Dalmatia, 
Croatia, Slavonia, yet in other parts of the monarchy 
there is scarcely any. In the two provinces of Upper and 
Lower Austria the attendance reaches almost 100 per 
cent. ; it is similar in Bohemia, in the Magyar portions of 
Hungary, in Moravia, in Styria, in Salzburg, in Carin- 
thia; but in the almost purely Slavic Carniola, in Istria, 
in Gradiska illiteracy again augments at a frightful rate. 
And this is only referring to mental differences ; economi- 
cally and socially the differences are still greater. They 
must be accounted for, at least in good measure, by local 
conditions arising from the varying dates when Chris- 
tianity, when the blessings of attendant civilisation were 
first made accessible to these regions. 
A cognate argument is also this : What is now known 



48 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

as Austria was in the main the Province of Noricum of 
the Romans, although that administrative unit comprised 
also part of Bavaria. Noricum in the Roman time was 
sparsely settled by tribes of Celtic stock, who during 
the ages of migration in the early centuries of the 
Christian era were partly exterminated, driven out or 
forcibly intermingled with Slavic tribes that came to 
settle there, having themselves been made to yield to 
Hunnish, Avar or Magyar conquering hordes that pushed 
them out of Moesia — the Balkan region — or Pannonia, 
the present Hungary. These Southern Slavs, practically 
all belonging to the Serbian race, — although they now 
call themselves Slovenes and their vernacular is not 
precisely the same as that of the Serbs or Croatians, — 
took to these thinly populated Alpine lands in the hope 
that there they would be out of the way of trouble and 
conquest. Nor were they in the main mistaken. They 
imposed, by means of their greater numbers, by inter- 
marriage and by coercion, their idiom on the Celtic 
aborigines, and the latter were completely assimilated by 
them. For a number of centuries those Slav immigrants 
were actually left in peace. They showed, though, one 
of the chief traits of Slav nature — the incapacity to 
organise themselves into permanent and efficient states. 
Thus they fell easy victims to the pushing, conquering 
Teutons when these in turn, under the strong impulse 
imparted to them by the introduction of Christianity and 
of the civilisation that followed in its wake, in the period 
of Charlemagne and the establishment of an elective but 
aggressive German Kingdom, began, first, to secure their 
frontiers against the predatory, nomadic, Turanian 
hordes from Hungary, and next to enlarge these borders 
on the line of least resistance, therefore in the direction of 
Slavic lands like ''Austria," Styria, Salzburg, Carinthia 



UNIQUE FEATURES OF PART OF PROCESS 49 

and Carniola. Under Charlemagne, too, began the settle- 
ment with Germans of these regions. The settlers, war- 
like and loaded with all their goods and chattels, came 
for the most part from what is now Bavaria. Hence, too, 
the dialect spoken to this day by the German populations 
of those districts is about the same as that spoken in 
the mountainous half of Bavaria. As a passing remark 
it may be said, while skimming this ethnological field, 
that these Bavarians themselves are racially a mixture of 
Teuton and Celt, with the Celtic indeed predominating in 
many places. That also explains the great difference in 
many respects between them — the real Bavarians of 
the Alpine tract — and their brothers of the empire. It 
may even be said that many of these Bavarians resemble 
more the Celtic Irish than the Germans further north, 
as in their pugnacity, in their love of art, their thrift- 
lessness, etc. Any close observer must have been struck 
with these peculiarities. Of the fact of this race mixture 
there is not the slightest doubt. Craniology alone would 
settle that question if historical proofs were lacking, 
which is not the case. 

Now, the German settlers in these regions to-day called 
Austria had much to do to establish themselves firmly in 
the lands held by force, both against assailants from 
within and without, and while they themselves, by reason 
of close ties with their Teuton homeland, progressed in 
civilisation and in prosperity, they had not much leisure 
and effort to bestow on the Slavic population they had 
displaced or with which they were living on more or 
less amicable terms in proximity. Thus it happened that 
these Slavic tribes (whose language and different 
manners alone were sufficient to isolate them) were 
Christianised much later only, and that no serious and 
persistent endeavour was made to bring them up to the 



50 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

intellectual or economic level of their new Teutonic 
masters. Besides, these things require much time and 
great effort; the times continued troublous; the Slavs 
were living compactly in contiguous territory mostly, 
not intermingled as regards space with the conquering 
race. And again it must be noted that the date of 
acquisition of the various wholly or partially Slavic 
' ' crown lands ' ' by Austria was not the same in each case, 
but was rather divided by centuries. Thus, a uniform 
level of civilisation was out of the question. 

In passing it might be mentioned that Vienna itself 
was originally Slav, and that fate, which plays curious 
pranks sometimes, seems rapidly turning that city, once 
the great centre of Teutonic culture in the East, back 
again into a Slavic metropolis. Vindobona the Eomans 
called it, probably from a Slavic tribe, the Vinds or 
Vends, and it was a Roman fortified camp in the midst 
of Celt savages. Excavations in Vienna itself leave no 
room for doubt on that score. During my stay in Vienna 
antiquarians brought many proofs to the surface, some 
of them from soil right under the heart of the City. 
Then, from the time of Charlemagne on, for a space of 
eight centuries or thereabouts, Vienna having been given 
a Teutonised form of its old name, Wien, became indeed 
German to the core, as its entire records show. But with 
the Habsburgs, their reigning house, the Viennese, too, 
gradually lost their distinctively German character. 
Refugees from other countries settled there, under the 
aegis of the court, in larger and larger numbers. Inuni- 
grants from Bohemia, from the Italian possessions of 
the Habsburgs, from Hungary and from every other 
part of the empire came in steady file. To-day the popu- 
lation of Vienna is, racially considered, at the very least 
three-fourths non-Teutonic. In features, in bearing, in 



UNIQUE FEATURES OP PABT OF PEOCESS 51 

complexion, in their characteristics, they show this 
plainly. Picking np a recent city directory of Vienna 
and turning over its leaves, one is struck by the fact that 
a score of pages are devoted to one purely Slavic (Czech) 
name alone, and that other Slavic, Italian, Hungarian 
names abound in this truth-telling tome. Carefully ob- 
serving names on street and shop signs, the same 
phenomenon is observed. True, the dialect spoken by 
the great mass of the people of Vienna is still a German, 
a Bavarian, one, although it is liberally mingled with 
Slav words. The school language, German, accounts for 
that. The vernacular is the last thing that changes. But 
the percentage of unmixed Slavs (especially Czechs) is 
all the while increasing. The unintermittent migration 
of the Czechs from Bohemia and Moravia to Vienna 
continues, and even the last rampart, that of tongue, is 
bound to fall at last, despite all the desperate efforts to 
ward this off made by the Viennese of old stock who 
feel hurt, humiliated by all this. Already the Czechs in 
Vienna have succeeded, notwithstanding municipal legis- 
lation framed ad hoc, in enforcing instruction in Czech 
in a number of schools situated in strongly Czech 
quarters, and are further extending their victory under 
the constitutional liberties of the empire. And how 
quickly a city may, under otherwise favouring circum- 
stances, change its racial and general aspects, there is 
no better illustration for than Prague, capital of 
Bohemia, and Budapest, the Hungarian capital. For 
Prague sixty years ago was predominantly a German 
city in all its leading features. To-day it is an intensely 
Czech city, with the German element reduced down to 
about ten per cent, of the whole. All the result of a 
systematic Czechicising propaganda and a campaign 
waged with unexampled zeal. The same is true of Buda- 



52 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

pest. In 1867 it was overwheliningly Teutonic in lan- 
guage, character, and everything else. To-day things are 
exactly reversed ; again caused by the same means. And 
curiously enough this has been done in face of the weighty 
fact that the language there displacing another, displac- 
ing one to possess which was in all material and in- 
tellectual respects of far greater value, was one of small 
circulation and intrinsically not alone extremely difficult 
to master but also of slight use outside of the narrow 
bounds where it dominates. But the potent spirit of 
racial pride, of racial fanaticism, so to speak, easily ex- 
plains the phenomenon. 

We have, then, the unmistakable fact to consider that 
the aboriginal character of the various populations of 
Austria-Hungary has been conserved through long 
stretches of time, in the face of all discouragement and 
of all material disadvantages which such conservation 
often meant. Indeed, it is one of the most interesting 
chapters in the life book of the Dual Monarchy to observe 
just this fact — the unabridged and unimpaired racial 
character of the populations not belonging to the once 
dominant element. For it must not be forgotten that, 
with the single exception of the Kingdom of Hungary, 
the elements thus recovering from their period of more 
or less oppression are composed entirely of fragments 
of races, not of entire races, of fragments of races that 
some of them, it is true, once had formed and maintained 
for a time large and powerful political entities, as in the 
case of the Czechs, of the Moravians, the Serbs and 
Croatians, the Slovaks and the Eumanians, or that had 
even lacked the political sagacity and energy to accom- 
plish that much, as may be said of the Slovenes, the 
Ladiners, the men of Italian stock in the south of Tyrol, 
in Istria and on the Adriatic shore. Some of these even 



UNIQUE FEATUEES OF PART OF PEOCESS 53 

had apparently buried all hope or desire of keeping their 
native tongue intact. This is true of the Slovenes, whose 
idiom is about the least plastic and the least cultivated of 
all the Slavic ones. It is only during the last thirty years 
that they once more, if I may use such a term, dug it out 
and began to try and make the most of it. They have 
succeeded remarkably well, and Slovene is now not alone 
a literary medium, but even a scientific one. It is similar 
in the case of Czech, though that at least could look back 
upon a time when it was in the heyday of its glory ; when 
as early as the 15th century, in the time of Huss, it was 
developed enough to serve as a vehicle for a translation of 
the gospels and for the composition of church hymns 
and of a whole liturgy. But Czech also vanished for a 
long time from all public and literary use, and it was only 
revived two generations ago. Even with Magyar the case 
was similar. Intensely proud and self-contained as this' ", 
race is, for centuries only Latin was used in the political 
life and for all public documents, even in the courts, of 
Hungary. And not until about 1830 was a beginning 
made to employ this strange idiom in the national parlia- 
ment and for all other public purposes. Strange idiom, 
I call it; for the Magyar language, rich and capable of 
the finest shades of expression, has no affinity with other 
languages spoken in Europe. It belongs to the Ural- 
Altaic stock, is agglutinous and very hard to learn, though 
quite sonorous and yet virile in sound. Had the Habs- 
burgs had the wisdom to consolidate all these hetero- 
geneous elements living under their sway — and for whom 
the dynasty meant in the main the one single link of 
connection — ^by a mild yet persistent course of suasion, 
all might have gone well in the end. For the dynasty 
itself, strange as that may appear on several accounts, 
their ''peoples" had ever shown something akin to af- 



54 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIEE \ 

f ection. And indeed, without that one motive of devotion 
to the house that had ruled them for centuries, it is hard 
to conceive what could have held this conglomerate, 
unique in this respect, together at all. It is hard to say 
what else could hold it together even to-day. And for 
long periods the Habsburgs had this opportunity of 
''peaceful fusion." But while the Habsburg internal 
policy, up to 1867, had always been that of centralisation, 
no attempt was made at welding the different elements 
into an indestructible whole. The centralisation aimed at 
was merely an outward one — ^uniformity of administra- 
tion; the compulsory use of German as the language in 
courts, in the army, on all public occasions ; a crudely lev- 
elling process, in short. But not one to blend the various 
parts, not one which would have made each feel a pride in 
the country as a whole, to foster intelligent patriotism and 
mutual forbearance, mutual recognition of each other's 
rights and ideals. Of course, the latter task was infinitely 
the harder one of the two. It would have called for an 
amount of psychological insight that we look for in vain 
amongst rulers of the past. Not even the great reformer, 
Joseph II, brilliant man though he otherwise may be 
called, was equal to such a mission. He, too, only adopted 
mechanical methods to transform his great monarchy 
spiritually into a unit. In fact, well-meaning as undoubt- 
edly he was, his was not the patience required for it. 
Besides, his reign did not last long enough, and he was 
superseded by an intellectual nonentity who speedily 
undid the little his predecessor had accomplished. 

Anyway, it is only with the dawn of the nineteenth 
century and with the coming of Napoleon I that the 
modem nations of Europe, so to speak, ''found" them- 
selves, i.e., became really conscious of their national 
selves. Napoleon, unshackled and unconventional genius 



UNIQUE FEATURES OF PART OF PROCESS 55 

and upstart as he was, whom the wave of the great Revo- 
lution had borne upward on its crest, was the first to 
throw the firebrand of race and nation strife into the 
stagnant pool of European politics. And while he cav- 
alierly threw about large lumps of territory, creating this 
or that one of his lucky marshals king or duke or despot 
of any of them, one notices beneath all that surface chaos 
the glimmering idea of national aspirations, of national 
uplift and rebirth. The idea is plainly perceptible in his 
rough dealings both in Italy and Grermany, but also in 
Austria. His carving out the ''Illyrian" Kingdom, for 
example, was a master stroke in its way. It lasted but a 
few years, that kingdom; but even to-day the people of 
Dalmatia and Istria think and talk of it with some regret. 
This Napoleonic idea was later on seized by his nephew. 
Napoleon III, and served him well. It was a power on 
his political chessboard which he conjured with to a 
purpose that suited him, as in 1859, in 1866 and again, in 
his scheme of annexing Luxemburg, in 1867. 

The modem conception of nationality, as a unit to 
which all those speaking the same tongue and professing 
the same ideals owe fealty, as one which by its mere 
geographical existence is bound to draw to it all accre- 
tions formerly lost to some other power or race, this 
conception, then, dates in the main only from the time 
of Napoleon III. The period when this idea became the 
most potent ferment, the irresistible force in the political 
life of Europe, was ushered in by the revolution of 1848, 
it is true. But even then it was not clearly defined, but 
rather was amalgamated with other, more general and 
altruistic, but not so vivid ideals. Its full fruition be- 
came only visible since 1860 by the unification of, first 
Italy and, ten years later, of Germany. 

Had the Habsburgs, therefore, to repeat it, utilised 



56 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

their time well, they would have had ample opportunities 
to weld all the scattered fragments making up their em- 
pire into a practical unit before the disruptive germ of 
nationalism had been able to infect the whole inchoate 
mass. But they did not do so. The long list of Habsburg 
rulers does not show us one single man who could be 
called great, not one who was able and willing to achieve 
great ends by moral means. They missed their turn, and 
now they have to pay the penalty. 

Taking a bird's-eye view of Austria-Hungary of to-day, 
the truth of this becomes apparent at once. Just to cite 
one more instance, there are the Latin fragments of her 
population, those of Italian race in the southern section 
of the Tyrol and those in Istria, the Littorale with 
Trieste, and in the rather limited coastal districts of 
Dalmatia. These point admirably the lesson which is 
conveyed in the foregoing. For all these Austrians of 
Latin stock were well contented with their political lot 
until after the successful establishment of the "Regno," 
the Kingdom of Italy. During the Napoleonic era the 
Italian-Tyrolese section was among the most loyal even, 
fighting the French invaders with nearly the same fer- 
vour as did their fellow Tyrolese of Teuton lineage to the 
north. Trieste was indubitably strongly pro-Austrian 
until quite recent years. The race feeling of all these 
people had gone to sleep. Trieste was, materially con- 
sidered, far better off under the Austrian "yoke" than 
it could possibly be under the Italian rule of the Regno, 
waxing in wealth with rapid strides and enjoying a prac- 
tical monopoly of Adriatic trade for the whole monarchy 
when it would have had to divide honours and emolu- 
ments with Venice and a score of other Italian ports once 
she formed part of Italy. Again, the Ladiners. These 
people (of whom I speak more in detail elsewhere) are 



UNIQUE FEATUEES OF PAET OF PEOCESS 57 

even to-day by no means pro-Italian. And they are not 
of Latin stock despite their name. They are, in fact, of 
the same ancient race which, nnder the appellation of 
Romansch, peoples the Swiss canton of Grisons. 
Celts they are, pure Celts, with a thin varnish 
with which the Eomans, during their age of world 
conquest, overlaid the surface. Their tongue, very 
different from Italian, is more than a mere dia- 
lect; it is a literary vehicle. And these Ladiners who, 
until fifty years ago, were about as numerous as Aus- 
trians of Italian descent, and who live mostly in agri- 
cultural enclaves, in all those districts named above, side 
by side with the men of Italian stock, might have proved 
a countervailing element as against the latter. To do 
this it would only have been necessary to grant them the 
same opportunities and the same privileges which the 
people of Italian stock enjoyed, such as a recognition of 
their idiom for public uses, equal school facilities, to 
encourage their press, their literature, to appoint a fair 
quota of them to honours and offices, to promote their 
trend of separate race existence; to give them, in fact, 
merely the same rights which they have in the Swiss 
canton of Grisons, just over the border. But the Habs- 
burgs did none of these things. Quite the opposite. The 
Italianissimi in the Trentino and in Istria, rather, were 
accorded every facility to conduct a strenuous propa- 
ganda amongst them, to deprive them of the means of 
furthering their own ideals, of publishing volumes of 
their wonderful folk lore and folk songs ; in a word, they 
were, under the very eyes and with the very connivance 
of the blind Austrian government, weened away from 
their own tongue and its cult and within a couple of 
generations turned into Italians to all interests and pur- 
poses. At least, the Italian propaganda here referred to 



58 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

(for which the money was forthcoming, year after year, 
from appropriations granted specially by the Italian par- 
liament) has actually succeeded in thus reducing the num- 
ber of confessedly Ladin persons to about one-half of 
what they were in 1870. Surrounded on all sides by 
people of Italian stock and denied the chance of being 
taught their own idiom at school, this is not astonishing. 
But the degree of Austrian myopia which brought about 
this result is certainly astonishing. 

I have here briefly mentioned the case of the Ladiners 
as it is strongly to the point. But it is not the only one of 
the kind in this singular jumble of races and racial 
driblets in Austria-Hungary that might be spoken of. 
The fact is that under the white heat of nationalistic 
frenzy, under the gospel of demanding full elbow room 
for every fragment of a race, the rule of the stronger has 
been practised in Austria-Hungary during the past fifty 
years with a ruthlessness unknown elsewhere. Each 
*' submerged" minority is again, if opportunity serves, 
submerging other minorities. The case of the Poles and 
of the Ruthenians in Galicia shows that clearly. The 
oppressed turns oppressor when he may. What has 
happened in the southern ridge of Austria to the Ladiners 
— an interesting fragment come down to us from the 
remote past but only numbering now some 300,000 to 
350,000 — ^happens in other parts of the Dual Monarchy 
to other minorities and small contingents, and Count 
Stephen Tisza in his speech in the Hungarian parliament 
not long ago was in so far right that it is not always easy 
to draw hard and fast lines as to where justice and mercy 
to minorities end and injustice to others and injury to 
the state begin. Certainly the course of the Poles against 
the Ruthenians in Galicia shows that, and so does the 
treatment accorded the Teutonic minority in Bohemia 



UNIQUE FEATURES OF PART OF PROCESS 59 

by their Czech fellow-countrymen, now the dominant ele- 
ment there, which has of late years often been the reverse 
of considerate and equable. But without going here any 
deeper into the matter this much seems plain to the stu- 
dent of the internal conditions of Austria-Hungary, that 
the dynasty, the ruling house of Habsburg, is primarily 
to blame for it if at this writing the race problem there 
forms such an almost inextricable network of riddles. 



CHAPTER IV 



KACIAL PROBLEM OUTLINED 



A query by Col, Theodore Roosevelt — Universal misconception of the 
problem outside Austria-Hungary — In some of its features it is 
unique — Repression and centralisation tried for centuries, and 
found not to answer — On the whole racial traits preserved intact — 
This fact if wisely utilised ought to yield the Dual Monarchy sev- 
eral great advantages in international rivalry — Diversity as a source 
of strength — Lesson of this war in this respect — Unfortunately 
racial animosities swamp all other considerations — Austrian and 
Hungarian paper money an unflattering portrait of the country — 
Twenty races under one rule — Some characteristics — Dumb and 
submerged elements of population — It would be the life task of a 
great statesman to bring about reconciliation — But it is an almost 
superhuman one — A world areopagus could never solve the ques- 
tion — Is a solution at all feasible? 

During the presidential campaign of 1912 the present 
writer had a conversation with Col. Theodore Roosevelt 
on political matters, and in the course of it — ^the scene 
being St. Paul, Minn., which contains a very large ad- 
mixture of Austrians and Hungarians in its population 
— the fact was mentioned that these alien-born elements 
mingled quite readily with American public life; that 
they, in fact, in the gross made good citizens and assimi- 
lated within a relatively short time completely with their 
surroundings. Col. Roosevelt, always interested in topics 
of that kind, expressed great satisfaction at this, but 
added, as an afterthought : ^'It beats me why those people 
cannot get on together at home. They seem to be for- 

60 



KACIAL PROBLEM OUTLINED 61 

ever at loggerheads. Someliow our American theorem of 
the * Melting Pot' does not seem to work out there. I 
wonder why? One would think that it must be much more 
easy for them to amalgamate into a fairly homogeneous 
whole at home, where they are confronted by conditions 
to which they are inured, than here where everything at 
first must seem strange to them. Yet they do not appear 
to make any headway in this respect in Austria-Hungary- 
The cable tells us of nothing but discord. ' ' 

That, I take it, would be about the gist of what a multi- 
tude of intelligent Americans that have given the subject 
any thought at all, have to say on Austria-Hungary's 
gravest problem, the problem of racial affinity and 
antipathy. 

Indeed outside Austria-Hungary there prevails uni- 
versal misconception of the whole matter. Nor is this, 
truth to tell, confined to foreign observers. Even among 
the native-born within the monarchy there is a very gen- 
eral blurring of the issues. The whole question bristles 
with difficulties. It is not alone involved and complicated, 
but to look at it fairly, it is absolutely necessary to rid 
one 's mind of a whole row of preconceptions and acquired 
errors of judgment. In a word, above all it is indispen- 
sable to approach the theme with impartiality. In some 
of its features it is unique. Not in the sense that race 
problems do not exist elsewhere to make the path of 
governments, of diplomat or statesman thorny. That, of 
course, is not the case. In the number of subject races, 
for example, Russia with her 128 separate and distinct 
tribes, types, races, hordes and nomadic aggregations of 
indigenous folk presents immeasurably greater difficulties 
if the intention or even the possibility existed there of 
merging all those inchoate masses — ^many of them 
pagans, fetish worshippers on the lowest plane — ^into a 



62 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

somewliat uniform whole. But conditions in the iimnense 
Russian empire present hardly any parallel with Austro- 
Hungarian ones, as the merest glance shows. And so 
elsewhere. 

To begin with, it must be kept in mind that this Austro- 
Hungarian monarchy, limited in size when compared with 
such political entities as Russia, the United States or the 
British world empire, harbors within narrow compass 
some twenty races or fragments of races and national- 
ities. These twenty are : Poles, Magyars, Germans, Ital- 
ians, Slovaks, Kanakas, Ruthenians, Ladiners, Ruma- 
nians, Jews, Armenians, Gypsies, Serbs, Croatians, 
Bosnians, Turks, Czechs, Moravians, Lithuanians, and 
Slovenes. In Austria eight of the idioms spoken by these 
people of many creeds and races are recognised as 
" La/ndessprachen" (languages of the country), or 
^'Verhehrssprachen" (languages of intercourse), and it 
is about as striking a portrait of this polyglot collection 
which masquerades under the name of a " Nationalitaten- 
Staat," i.e., a ''nationalities' state," to be found when 
one gets hold of an Austrian bill of paper money. There, 
on the body of the bill and around the margins the de- 
nomination, the meaning of the bill, the penalty for coun- 
terfeiting it and all the other things a paternal govern- 
ment deems it requisite to let its lieges know is printed 
in multi-coloured ink, for the wary to beware. Over in 
Hungary it is not quite so bad. There some four tongues 
are considered enough to convey the meaning of the text. 
Yet all this does not constitute the main difficulty. There 
is, for instance, one feature wrapped up in this race 
problem in Austria-Hungary of which little mention is 
made as a rule, and yet which complicates it immensely. 

For while it is true that, speaking in a general way, 
the leading (or more populous) nationalities are grouped 



EACIAL PEOBLEM OUTLINED 63 

on fairly compact and contiguous territory, this is by no 
means the case throughout. Just to illustrate this let me 
cite some facts from the last census. These show, then, 
that in Bohemia and Moravia, for example, there are sev- 
eral hundred villages partly Slav, partly Teuton. In some 
cases the latter, in others the former, make up the ma- 
jority. Again, there are so-called '^enclosures" or "en- 
claves," i.e., districts small or large inhabited by one 
race, while the whole surrounding country is peopled by 
another. Then, as in Transylvania, the landowners are 
Magyars, the peasants Eumanian. This intermingling is 
often inextricable, as time and circumstances have shaped 
it. There are many towns of considerable size within the 
borders of the realm where one-half the people belong to 
the dominant race, the other made up of those grouped 
with the minorities ; and vice versa. These cases in their 
totality concern probably a couple of millions of the 
population of Austria-Hungary, for what is true of Bo^ 
hemia and Moravia is likewise true in varying degree of 
all other provinces. Manifestly such conditions render 
the terrorising, the more or less forcible denationalising 
of such practically powerless minorities very probable. 
The complaints, too, growing out of such peculiar cases, 
have always been most difficult to adjust. Often small 
occurrences which took their rise at national festivals 
celebrated purposely in the stronghold of another *' na- 
tion," insignificant in themselves, perhaps due to a blus- 
tering spirit of bravado, have been magnified by the press 
of the various "nationalities," until a wave of anger has 
swept over the whole province and beyond. If it were 
possible in these days of railroad and telephone and 
printer's ink to isolate such neighbourhoods and to let 
calmness and common sense reassert themselves, not one- 
half the amount of race hatred would be expended in 



64 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

Austria-Hungary. It is publicity, the close proximity, 
the inextricable intermingling of warring factions and 
disputing races that have made much of the mischief. 
Avr'i these interminable squabbles and rows and fisticuff 
encounters between the different races, especially on holi- 
days, during large athletic excursions and popular meet- 
ings, during political campaigns and on election days, 
have naturally increased in frequency and acrimonious- 
ness as railroads, steamboats and other means of com- 
munication became more common and made such hostile 
clashings more frequent. 

Now part of the Habsburg policy has been for centuries 
to let all this hodge-podge of small races and racial frag- 
ments coalesce into one huge mass, alike devoid of char- 
acter and of individual traits. This was their policy of 
centralisation. In remoter ages they did not meet with 
much resistance on this score, for the very sentiment of 
nationality — race consciousness — is not very old. Indeed 
in their warfare in favour of uniformity the Habsburg 
rulers in most cases were firmly opposed only where 
tangible political or economic interests or privileges were 
at stake. The Empress Maria Theresa, with a woman's 
innate tact, knew how to wheedle and cajole the Mag- 
yars, by far politically the most advanced and determined 
of her motley array of subjects, out of a number of their 
cherished political rights and pledged prerogatives. Her 
son, Joseph II, likewise pursuing the same policy of cen- 
tralisation {i.e., Germanisation in reality), went about 
it in greater haste and with much less success. The up- 
shot of it all was that after a policy of this description 
more or less consistently followed for about 250 years, its 
complete failure had to be admitted. And from 1867 on, 
dating from the Ausgleich with Hungary, this policy as 
a system of government had to be dropped. Indeed it 



i 



EACIAL PEOBLEM OUTLINED 65 

has been superseded by the reverse; at first rather un- 
consciously, as a result of sundry crises, but after a while 
as part of a settled system. But it has never gone farther 
than halfway. The policy of centralisation had not been 
found to answer. Its non-success became so glaringly 
evident during the war of 1866, when Austria had indeed 
come to the lowest ebb and seemed on the brink of dis- 
solution, that from that hour on even Emperor Francis 
Joseph, obstinate and self-willed as he had proven him- 
self to be, shelved the very idea for good and all. No 
statesman of either Austria or Hungary has ever dreamt 
of reviving it, although there have been at times strong 
currents of public opinion favouring its revival. 

Very astonishing on the whole is the fact, however, 
that after such a long period of stern repression racial 
traits in Austria-Hungary have remained virtually intact. 
Slavs, Magyars, Germans, even such a ^'submerged" race 
as the Rumanian, — each stand out clear and distinct, with 
their peculiar virtues and foibles. This, of course, must 
not be taken too literally. Modifications there have been 
wrought by the centuries. The Czechs of to-day, for ex- 
ample, are not the Czechs of 1618;, they have learnt a 
great deal from their foes, the surrounding Teutons. So 
have the Teutonic Austrians themselves, mixed stock as 
they are, been moulded into something different when 
compared with what they were in the Middle Ages. And 
as for the Magyars, there is no doubt they have under the 
stress of national troubles developed a sense of per- 
spective, a measure of moderation and conciliation which 
formerly they were strangers to. The Jews, too, with 
all the adaptability of that wonderfully vital race, have 
greatly changed in the Austria-Hungary of to-day. In 
both halves they have become good patriots, have enor- 
mously gained in wealth and standing. Solely in G-alicia 



66 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

— ^where adverse circumstances have hampered them — 
they have sunk, as to the great body of them at least, 
deeper and deeper into the mire of squalor, bigotry and 
sordid greed. Another exotic fragment (although with its 
120,000 forming but the twentieth part of the number of 
Hebrews dwelling within Austria-Hungary), the Hun- 
garian gypsies, have also yielded to the force of cir- 
cumstances, as became patent in the course of this war. 
True, the larger portion of them are still vagrants and 
wanderers on the face of the earth. But many thousands 
of them have settled down to useful toil in the village or 
town, and the males among them of military age, enough 
to form a whole army corps, were enrolled in the army 
and have fought with varying fortunes at the front. In- 
deed the stories told of their qualifications as fighters 
seem to dispel in a measure popular ideas as to the 
''middling" bravery of the gypsy. Quite a number of 
them distinguished themselves and obtained military 
rank and decorations. The Bosnians, too, whom I 
enumerated separately as a nationality, because of spe- 
cial traits, have displayed qualities setting them apart 
from their near kin, the Serbs. Nor is this astonishing, 
for as their history since 1356 shows, they in their major 
half willingly became Moslems (their separate creed, that 
of the Bogomiles — a sect resembling that of the Al- 
bigenses of old and fiercely persecuted by orthodox 
Christianity as heretics of the deepest dye — predisposing 
them to the teachings of Islam), and as Moslems they 
have fraternised with the Turks and have betrayed a 
fatalism truly Turkish throughout this war. And while 
this war itself took its geographical rise in the pretty, 
mosque-dotted capital of Bosnia, in Sarayevo, they them- 
selves, fighting sturdily in the Austrian ranks as soldiers 
(big, brawny, fez-covered fellows they are, too), have 



EACIAL PROBLEM OUTLINED 67 

done so with perfect impartiality, whether the enemy was 
Russian or Serb. The idiom, too, the Bosnians and 
Hercegovinians speak, while Serbian originally, is thickly 
interspersed with Turkish words, and they themselves, in 
their manners and their whole mode of life, whether Mos- 
lems or Christians, are deeply tinged with Orientalism. 

On the whole, however, the various nationalities and 
races composing the Austria-Hungary of to-day are 
still substantially their old selves. Thus a great diversity 
of racial gifts is presented to the beholder. And this, if 
wisely used, might make for the future greatness, as a 
factor in contemporaneous civilisation, of this composite 
nation. If each of these races were but unstintingly to 
contribute its best to the world — the Magyar his elo- 
quence, his political tact and skill of administration, his 
poetical and dramatic fire and vigour, his sturdy love of 
independence; the Teuton those sterling qualities with 
which the world is familiar; the Slav, in his various 
branches, his artistic gifts, his great talent for music, his 
psychological insight, his skill in domestic adornment, 
etc. — what a gain that would be ! Much, most of this is at 
present hidden from view. But it might, under more fa- 
vouring conditions, all see the light. What could an em- 
pire embodying — in its crude state mostly as yet — all 
those racial endowments within one frame, so to speak, 
what could such an empire not offer to the world within 
the near future! 

And among the things this war has demonstrated to a 
reluctant world — reluctant, I mean, in the sense of being 
but half willing to credit so retrograde a country with un- 
looked-for achievements — there has been just such an 
illustration of what I hinted at above. For the old Arch- 
duke Frederick, while anything rather than a great 
soldier, at least admirably understood how to utilise the 



68 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

different races in their fighting proclivities. He made 
splendid use of the dash and indomitable pluck of the 
Magyar; of the stubborn endurance of the Slav; of the 
sturdy valour of the Teuton. This he showed at every 
front — against the Russians, the Serbs, the Italians, and 
everywhere his discrimination was of the utmost value. 
Again, next to Germany herself, the Teuton element in 
Austria did much to neutralise the effects of the British 
blockade by scientific discoveries and inventions provid- 
ing substitutes for greatly needed necessaries in warfare, 
such as rubber, cotton, copper, etc. 

However, true as this is, it is just as true that even 
with the Dual Monarchy struggling in a death grasp, race 
strife has not ceased within its borders. I recall that 
several times, right in the midst of the war, even when 
news of terrific defeat had stirred the people, reports 
were published of such race collisions. They took place, 
in 1914 and 1915, in Prague and other Bohemian towns, 
where the students of the two national universities at one 
time had a regular battle, lasting for several days. The 
cause of it given was that the Teutonic students had 
charged the Czech students with treasonable practices 
and aims. A Croat battalion had to be sent for at last 
(the local police force proving powerless to check the 
fighting) from a distance to re-establish order. Similar 
disturbances, though not on as large a scale, occurred 
elsewhere — in Laibach, late in 1914; in Agram, in 1915, 
and in Vienna itself on repeated occasions, Socialistic 
motives mingling with patriotic ones. 

With some justice one may speak in Austria-Hungary 
of dumb and submerged races, or fragments of races. 
One of these doubtless are the Ruthenians, or Ukrain- 
ians. These form part of that wing of Russian people 
denominated in Russia mostly '^ Little Russians," other- 



EACIAL PROBLEM OUTLINED 69 

wise known as Ukrainians and numbering altogetlier 
some tMrty-five millions. They are really a fine race, 
mentally superior to the Great Russians, or Muscovites, 
and speaking a tongue which, while cognate to Russian 
proper, forms a distinct and separate unit. It has quite 
a literature of its own. Its greatest poet, Chevchenko, 
like so many others of Russia's choicest spirits, died a 
martyr to the cause of his people, ending his days in the 
Fortress of Sts. Peter and Paul. I will not go into the 
subject of the history of this most interesting branch of 
the great Slav family, fascinating and tempting as that 
would be. But we have here only to deal with that small 
section of the Ukrainian race which fell to Austria's 
share with Galicia in the time of Maria Theresa. Some 
three millions of them dwell in the eastern half of Galicia, 
while another half million was apportioned to Hungary's 
share, in the northeastern counties of it. This whole race 
has fared ill. In Russia the Czarish government for a 
hundred years past has even done its worst to stamp out 
the genius of this people entirely. In Austria their lot 
has not been quite so unhappy. But when the deal was 
made between the dominant race in Galicia, the Poles, 
and the Austrian government, which was done soon after 
the Ausgleich with Hungary, in 1867, by which the Poles 
pledged the new constitutional and parliamentary regime 
in Austria their support in exchange for being given 
practical autonomy in Galicia and a free hand to settle 
their provincial political affairs to suit themselves, the 
poor Ruthenians (as they are mostly termed in Austria) 
or Ukrainians were made the scapegoat. From one- 
time oppressed the Poles turned themselves oppressors. 
By reason of great wealth (the Poles being owners of 
most of the soil) and better opportunities, the Ruthe- 
nians were practically enslaved by the Poles. The latter 



70 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

have an ancient historical grudge against the Ruthe- 
nians and this fact together with the difference in creed 
(the Ruthenians belonging to the orthodox church) has 
made the Poles ruthless masters. To all intents and 
purposes the Ruthenians are disfranchised, robbed of all 
chance to rise and cut off from every humble lane that 
might lead to prosperity. In short, since 1868 they have 
been the helots of the Poles in Galicia. In the provin- 
cial diet as well as in the Galician delegation to the 
Reichsrat in Vienna the Ruthenians, although number- 
ing nearly as many as the Poles, have been represented 
by a mere handful of members, outvoted, browbeaten, 
kept in direst poverty. The large emigration from 
Galicia comes almost exclusively from the Ruthenian 
ranks. A few years ago the Polish governor of Galicia, 
a tyrant particularly obnoxious to the Ruthenians, was 
assassinated by a Ruthenian student. The latter, es- 
caping from jail, is now a fugitive in this country. His 
deed, however, led to no results beneficial to the Ruthe- 
nian cause. Up to this hour the Ruthenians of Galicia 
are still what they have been so long — a dumb and sub- 
merged race. 

One other feature in this stubborn race problem is 
still left for me to point out. It is significant that the 
clever manipulator who devised the Ausgleich in 1867, 
and who, therefore, was really the creator of the Dual 
Monarchy as such, namely, Count Beust, was not a native 
but a Saxon. He had, it is true, achieved considerable 
fame as the all-powerful premier of that tiny kingdom 
of Saxony which had unfalteringly been the steady and 
self-sacrificing friend and supporter of Austria, a friend- 
ship really worthy of a better cause. The fame, too, 
which he had acquired reached far beyond the narrow 
boundaries of Saxony, and even of Germany and Aus- 



RACIAL PROBLEM OUTLINED 71 

tria. Count Beust was very ambitions ; a man of original 
mind and of great fertility of resources. Under his guid- 
ance the Trias formation of the old German Confedera- 
tion had made considerable headway. He venomously 
opposed Bismarck and his plans of ousting Austria and 
conferring the indisputable hegemony in Germany on 
Prussia. His scheme had been to group the German 
Confederation in three factors, each of approximately 
equal powers and influence — ^Austria, Prussia and, as the 
third, the smaller states: Bavaria, Saxony, Wiirttem- 
berg, Hanover, etc. Hence he had baptised his plan the 
Trias. Yielding to his strong influence Saxony, in 1866, 
had joined Austria in her war with Prussia. Othello's 
occupation was gone when little Saxony, within that 
short campaign of six weeks — the shortest momentous 
war in history — ^lay under the conqueror's heel. And 
thus when the Emperor Francis Joseph after the Peace 
of Prague looked around for a suitable man of talent 
to set up his house again and make it habitable, his 
choice fell on Beust. All that and more Beust himself 
tells us in his volume of personal reminiscences, together 
with embellishing anecdotes and deliciously malicious 
storiettes. But one thing, one of the most important, 
he passes over. Namely, the fact that he himself was 
a foreigner, a non- Austrian. And yet it is hard to see 
how any one to the manner born, how an Austrian or 
Hungarian could have hit upon and then carried to a 
successful issue this novel makeshift of an Ausgleich of 
1867. Unburdened with the traditions and historic 
claims, with the racial prejudices and predilections that, 
perhaps, unwittingly but none the less surely cling to 
every representative of any one group or race within 
Austria-Hungary, Beust could set to work and with the 
impartiality of a Minos, of a severe but just judge, ap- 



72 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

portion the new rights and duties. He succceeded in 
his delicate and difficult task largely because he was a 
foreigner, a non- Austrian, one to whom no suspicion of 
wilful unfairness could reasonably attach. 

And that is the trouble now. That has been the 
trouble ever since 1871 — when Beust, after the brilliant 
success of Bismarck in the war of 1870-71 and the formal 
establishment of a new and potent German Empire no 
longer persona grata at the court of Vienna, had been 
retired and sent to London as ambassador — ever since 
the reorganised Austria-Hungary has been unable to find 
another Beust, or at least some statesman endowed with 
the same gifts and with the same attributes of frankly 
admitted racial detachment. To clean the Augean stables 
of Austria-Hungary would require more than a modern 
Hercules. It would require a man of genius, one of the 
kind which only see the light once in a century and which 
this effete, apathetic Austria-Hungary, where virile, 
fresh and independent thought has been tabooed so long, 
is least able to furnish. To each man called to preside 
over the Foreign Office at the Ballplatz in Vienna — for 
that office alone, the one of Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
is in this strange Dual Monarchy the one where great 
things still seem possible of accomplishment — be he 
Teuton or Magyar, Pole or Czech, from the outset fol- 
lowed the fact of his separate nationality. And this ren- 
dered it instinctively impossible for the men of other, 
more or less hostile, races to give the new man their full 
confidence. That in the last analysis explains the failure 
of one adroit leading statesman after the other in the 
Austria-Hungary of to-day to find the sovereign elixir of 
race conciliation. His best efforts, his most dexterous 
measures were shipwrecked on the rock of racial sus- 
picion. 



EACIAL PEOBLEM OUTLINED 73 

Indeed a perfectly smooth solution of the racial prob- 
lem, one which would leave every section of the popula- 
tion wholly contented, seems like the squaring of the 
circle — impossible. If the young emperor, Carl, should 
not be favoured by fate to the extent of discovering and 
securing the services of a first-class non- Austrian states- 
man, it is well-nigh out of the question that his path 
as a ruler wiU be less beset with thorns than was that of 
his predecessor, no matter how much tact and equity he 
might display. Nor is it at all to be expected that the 
remedy advocated by thoughtful and humane persons 
outside of Austria-Hungary would fare better. To sub- 
mit this knotty question to an Areopagus the members 
of which might be selected from the wisest and most fair- 
minded of their kind, whether such an international court 
of arbitration were at the same time one of last resort or 
only a deliberative body whose dictum would carry with 
it more or less moral weight, would leave it in the end 
about where they found it. And this independent of the 
fact that, after all, each one of the members of such an 
exalted body would also be more or less tinctured with 
preconceived ideas and affinities. It may be said, there- 
fore, that a complete unriddling of the riddle is a super- 
human piece of work. 



CHAPTER V 

INHEBENT DIFFICULTIES OF IT 

Why the "Melting Pot" theory does not apply to Austria-Hungary — 
All these races claim their dwelling place as their home — They are 
not immigrants — Soil held for a thousand years and over — Look 
upon their neighbours as intruders and foes — Added to this is deep- 
seated racial antipathy — The closer neighbours the more frequent 
collisions — All struggling for supremacy in their home — Not an 
unalloyed evil, however — ^Bohemia an illustration of that — Friction 
breeds not only hostility, but powerfully reacts on the whole make- 
up of each race — Czechs turned from purely agriculturists to towns- 
people and manufacturers — The learned professions no longer 
monopolised by the Teutonic element — The Jews displacing them 
largely, but also the Slavs — Red tape and officialism complicating 
the problem still further — A dictum of Bismarck's — ^Anxious Aus- 
trian and Hungarian mammas toiling in behalf of their offspring 
— A second circumlocution office — The ambition of the average 
youth. 

The things laid bare in the foregoing chapter com- 
prise, however, by no means all the perplexing features 
of this problem of racial jealousy and virulence. Here 
is, for instance, the main reason why the ''Melting Pot" 
theory, on which Col. Roosevelt descanted to me in 1912, 
cannot hold true in Austria-Hungary. All these rival- 
ling races, envious of each other and covetous of terri- 
tory and everything else held by their fellow-dwellers 
in the same house, are not immigrants, such as they 
are in the United States. They call this bit of soil on 
which they and their forefathers have lived their home, 

74 



INHEEENT DIFFICULTIES OF IT 75 

theit very own. And with good reason, too. When the 
Austrian or Hungarian — or for that matter, any other 
immigrant of whatsoever faith or blood — lands on Amer- 
ican shores, he comes as an uninvited guest, following 
the bent of his more or less adventurous mind; to im- 
prove his material condition in most cases ; to live free 
from political or religious persecution; to breathe a 
freer air and feel a man amongst men ; to secure better 
opportunities for himself and his children. These and 
other similar motives have drawn him from across the 
water, these in part or wholly. But in any event he 
finds a land already settled; with laws to protect him, 
with the way made more or less smooth for him and his. 
But in that land whence he came and which he calls his 
home it was quite a different case. That land was a 
wilderness when first his ancestors came to it. Perhaps 
they had first to conquer it, take it by force and hold it 
by force against all comers. Or else his forbears fled 
to it to escape the sword of another, a mightier and more 
ruthless tribe, such as was the case with the Slovenes, 
the Moravians and others. They had to break the 
ground, often in almost inaccessible parts, up steep 
mountain sides, to keep out of the way of the destroyer. 
They had to fell the trees and clear the forests for their 
crops. Every rood of the soil was bought with the 
sweat of their brow, cost them in blood and toil. And 
the time when their sires first came lay in the remote 
past. It lay so far back that often the approximate 
time even is shrouded in doubt to this day. It is only 
surmise, for example, not historical certainty, that the 
Czechs are the descendants of the Boii (hence sup- 
posedly the name of the country : Bohemia) , who settled 
in that fruitful land of Bohemia about 350 or 400 A.D. 
Of the Moravians we are only sure that along about the 



76 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

time of Charlemagne and for a hundred and fifty years 
later they had already founded a large and powerful 
federative state, which under Svatopluk ruled from the 
Baltic to the Black Sea. Even of the early history of 
the Poles, Lithuanians and Ruthenians we do not know 
much, further than that it was stormy and full of vicissi- 
tudes. But in any case we do know that all these races 
and peoples who are now gathered within the Habsburg 
fold were early comers, dwelling in their present home- 
steads for a thousand years and over. Of the Teutonic 
Austrians we are somewhat better informed, since their 
exploits — their settlements, migrations, conquests — ^were 
linked together with the doings of Charlemagne, about 
800 A.D., and his successors. Even they, therefore, in- 
vaders as they undeniably were, can claim possession of 
their homes by the **good old rule,'* reaching back to 
primordial days in those eastern districts of semi-bar- 
barous Europe. And it stands to reason that all those 
so curiously jumbled races and fragments of races, rem- 
nants though they may be of what was once a coherent 
state, feel at home on this soil of theirs to which they 
have affixed its name, and that they do not intend wil- 
lingly to yield it up to any intruder. For that is their 
frame of mind about it — they regard the *' others" as 
intruders, as foes. The ''others" are their near neigh- 
bours, perhaps their "guests," in which case the original 
meaning of host — hostis, the stranger, the foreigner, the 
&nemy, once again assumes its true significance. 

And psychologically it also becomes quite plain why 
there can be no question under these circumstances of 
these masses of conflicting denizens accommodating 
themselves to each other, as they unquestionably do in 
this country, as immigrants. For the attitude of mind 
is very different. In the latter case they come to make 



INHEEENT DIFFICULTIES OF IT 77 

their way among those who have preceded them, it may 
be by decades or it may be by centuries, come modestly, 
qurttsi as petitioners and suppliants. But in the former 
case they sit on their own soil, the soil of their fathers, 
which their sweat and their ploughshares have made 
productive. The soil may now even be barren — still it 
is theirs and not the strangers', the intruders'. And 
pursuing this train of reasoning a bit farther, it also is 
easily understood how it comes about that the closer 
proximity waxes between these rival races, the more 
intercourse there necessarily has to be between them, due 
to economic or political causes, the deeper aversion 
grows. The proof of this can be studied in Austria- 
Hungary in all its phases — nowhere better. Thus, despite 
the fact that the Croatians and Southern Slavs have 
been treated none too tenderly or fairly by the Habs- 
burgs and by the Teutonic Germans generally, and de- 
spite the fact that the proverbial Habsburg ingratitude 
went so far in the recent past as to hand these Slavs 
back to the rigid rule of the Hungarians after they had 
helped the emperor overcome the Magyar rising in 1849, 
nevertheless these same Croatians and Southern Slavs 
bear the Magyars inveterate hatred, while they feel but 
a lukewarm dislike for the Teutons. ^11 because for a 
thousand years back they had the Magyars as their close 
neighbours and rivals, while the others, the Teutons, 
were an avoidable evil, one not to be dreaded by reason 
of distance. Whereas the Czechs, surrounded on all sides 
by populations speaking the German tongue, from whom 
they, moreover, had picked up much valuable knowledge, 
largely because of that very proximity and perhaps, in 
part, because of these very benefits conferred, hate the 
Germans like poison, and most of all the Austrian Ger- 



78 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

mans, those they have had most to do with in all these 
centuries. 

Thus there can be no doubt that in this case, as in 
many analogous ones, frequent and close intercourse, 
even intermarriage, or mutually profitable business re- 
lations, have had — and still have throughout Austria- 
Hungary — ^not the effect of drawing such rival races to- 
gether in bonds of friendship and tolerance, but on the 
contrary of separating them spiritually more and more. 

Added to this, however, must be the strong racial 
antipathy in itself. Of all races Slavs and Teutons seem 
to have this instinctive sentiment strongest and most in- 
eradicable. And it is only because of the naturally 
indolent and dreamy character of the Slav, in juxta- 
position with the feeling of good-natured contempt on 
the part of the Teutons (as dealing with "inferiors") 
that violent clashes between individuals or masses of 
the two races are not more frequent. During this war, 
when I have had much occasion to observe these things, 
both at the front and in prisoners' camps, I have been 
struck by this ethnologic phenomenon. Instinctively the 
Slav, when he has the choice, will turn rather to the 
Latin (Italian, Frenchman, Rumanian) or to the Celt 
(Irishman, etc.) than to the German, English or Ameri- 
can. And with the German it is similar, whether he be 
of the true breed from the Empire or of the Austrian 
medley. It is often curious to watch betrayal of the 
feeling. On a train I once observed a couple of Ger- 
man-Americans travelling in Bohemia. They were talk- 
ing English together, and the Czechs present listened 
complacently and showed the pair every courtesy. At 
a wayside station a Teutonic Bohemian boarded the car, 
and on seating himself pulled out a newspaper printed 
in German and began to peruse it. After a while one 



INHEEENT DIFFICULTIES OF IT 79 

of the German- Americans asked permission, in tolerable 
German, to look at the paper a moment. Instantly the 
temperature fell to the zero point. The Czechs froze 
them simply, ostracised them and now began to talk 
demonstratively in Czech. 

But it is not only between the Slavs and the Teutons 
within the monarchy that such frigid relations subsist. 
Between Magyar and Teuton there is likewise an im- 
passable gulf. I recall an instance in point. 

It was early in the spring of 1915. Seated next to me 
in one of the most luxurious coffee houses in Vienna was 
a young Hungarian officer of hussars, in his buttonhole 
a high military decoration. We entered into conversa- 
tion. He was of distinguished family, handsome, his 
face lit up with bright intelligence. He was on a short 
leave from the Carpathian front, having done his share 
of the strenuous fighting there. I asked him his opinion 
of the Russian. 

''Why,'* he said, smiling, *'the Russian is not so bad 
a fellow after all." And he went into detail. Then, 
growing more confidential, he added: ''Of the two, the 
Austrian and the Russian, I much prefer the Russian." 

"Seriously?" I asked. 

"Yes, seriously," was the reply, and something fero- 
cious crept into his face. 

Another case. A year ago I met a Bavarian officer in 
the pretty City Hall Park of Vienna, and we got to talk- 
ing. He was just back from Ueskiib, where he had taken 
a number of heavy German guns, so-called "Fat Ber- 
thas." And in chatting on about this and that of in- 
terest during his trip, I incidentally mentioned the 
Hungarians. Then he flared up. "The Hungarians? 
Why, they seem worse than the Serbians. That is the 
common verdict of our men in the Balkans. Nice allies, 



80 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIEE 

those. They hate the Austrians so bad that they even 
transfer the feeling to us as their near kindred." And 
he swore an oath or two. 

And this hatred is reciprocated by the Austrians. With 
them, too, it is elemental, racial. It is stronger among 
the unthinking masses than among those forming the 
upper crust. It found fresh fuel from the failure of 
Hungary adequately to provision Austria — and more 
especially Vienna — during the war, whereas before the 
war a large part of her supplies had always reached 
Vienna from Hungary. The feeling, too, betrays itself 
at the front. Many cases of alleged mistreatment of the 
Hungarian soldiers by Austrian officers have been dis- 
cussed in the Parliament at Budapest, giving rise to in- 
dignant speeches and heated demands for redress. Hun- 
garian and Austrian men would not do together within 
the same regiments. 

But for all that this race rivalry is not an unmixed 
evil. That is another curious side of it. For lurking 
underneath the mutual aversion and distrust, there is 
another feeling, one by the way which, although circum- 
stances in most respects are quite dissimilar, one may 
study, too, in this country to good advantage. That is 
the feeling of respect, reluctantly entertained maybe, yet 
none the less genuine and powerful for good, entertained 
by one race for those sterling qualities in which itself 
is lacking. This alloy of respect is in most cases not 
freely admitted to third parties. It may hide itself under 
the cloak of a contempt publicly and loudly expressed 
for that very cast of mind secretly aspired after. But 
the proof of the pudding is in the eating. For while 
noisily disparaging them, there will be quiet emulation 
and imitation. In no other country, for example, is this 
truth more apparent than in Bohemia. There the people 



INHEEENT DIFFICULTIES OF IT 81 

constituting the majority liave gone through the rough 
school of adversity and actual experience, and with 
astounding results. For these are the facts: Nothing 
can be plainer than that the Slav, of every stripe and 
creed, is naturally of a heedless, slovenly, spendthrift 
disposition. The Czechs were so in days gone by. The 
Russians still are ; so are all the other Slav races whom 
stem necessity has not moulded anew. But the Czechs, 
after studying for years the secret of greater efficiency 
and prosperity on the part of their Teutonic neighbours, 
at last took heed and actually transformed their original 
Slav character, at least insofar as to rid themselves of 
the traits spoken of. With the men of Germanic stock, 
they discovered, it was just as natural to be cautious 
and precise, thorough and painstaking, saving almost to 
the point of parsimoniousness, as it was for the Slav to 
be the reverse. And they also discovered that herein lay 
a great part of the Germanic successes over the Slav 
wherever the two came in competition. And so, as I say, 
the Czech as a race gradually began to discard those 
hampering defects and to assume the contrary ones of 
his great rival and foe. I am calling special attention 
to this fact for, psychologically considered, it is nothing 
short of marvellous. It would indeed do no harm for the 
American people as a whole to take a leaf out of this 
Czech book and to make the movement for a wise econ- 
omy — a movement now pushed and advocated under the 
unprecedented war conditions — a big reality; to turn 
from the most wasteful people in the universe into one 
where — ^not niggardliness but — reasonable frugality be- 
came the rule rather than the exception. That in itself 
would be a glorious achievement due to the war; albeit 
it still seems far off, for the eradication of a national 
trait that has entered into the very grain is a most diffi- 



82 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

cult thing, possible only in a really serious and far-reach- 
ing emergency. But I am straying from my own topic. 
And there is absolutely no doubt that such a metamor- 
phosis in the Czech soul has been accomplished and that 
it can be due to nothing else but the bitter and strenuous, 
the age-long competition with the Teuton, his neighbour 
and fellow-denizen of Bohemia. The Czech, of all the 
Slav races and nations, is the only one who has acquired, 
to an extent truly amazing, these peculiarly Teuton 
qualities of character. He has become saving, husband- 
ing his resources, national as private, with patient skill. 
He has amassed in that way wealth and large capital. 
From a country where Slav wasteful and haphazard 
methods prevailed but sixty or seventy years ago, the 
Czech part of Bohemia just as much as the one settled by 
men of Teuton stock, has become the richest and most 
carefully administered within the whole of Austria- 
Hungary. With the aquisition of those new traits he 
also combined practical results of another and not less 
desirable kind. Like all the Slavs the Czechs were a 
nation of agriculturists, almost purely and entirely so, 
until about 1860. Within the short period since the 
Czechs have not abandoned tilling of their own soil cer- 
tainly, but they have successfully invaded all the other 
fields of human activity in which their Teutonic fellow- 
Bohemians formerly held a monopoly. They have entered 
industry and manufacturing, the important domain of 
finance and banking, and, to cap it all, all the learned 
professions as well, including those in the technical and 
administrative line, such as civil engineering, electrics, 
architecture, railroad construction, the management of 
big industrial enterprises and estates, etc., etc. And in 
all these, for them quite new and untried spheres of 
activity, they have done well, displaying the very pro- 



INHEEENT DIFFICULTIES OF IT 83 

clivities wMch formerly they lacked — those of steady 
patience, perseverance, thoronghness and indefatigable 
industry. So much so indeed that, the home opportuni- 
ties offering them, after all, but a limited area, thousands 
of such splendidly equipped Czech scientists and tech- 
nicians have gone abroad and found influential and well- 
remunerated posts in Russia, the Balkan, in South and 
North America — ^in fact, everywhere. Those are facts I 
am citing, easily ascertainable and corroborated from the 
records of the Czech School of Technology (itself a com- 
paratively recent proof of their enterprise) in Prague 
and from those of the Czech University there, where full 
lists are kept of the alumni. These facts speak an elo- 
quent language, and they certainly demonstrate that race 
hatred and race rivalry may also lead, as a by-product, 
if I may say so, to admirable and very tangible results. 
This showing becomes all the more wonderful when it is 
kept in mind that the Czechs after all are but a small 
people, numbering barely six millions altogether, count- 
ing in every part of the world, and that they started out 
rather late on their modern road and were seriously 
handicapped at first by being, up to 1860 or thereabouts, 
in their large bulk a race possessing few good schools 
and higher seats of learning, mostly belonging to the 
lower middle classes and the proletariat, and having 
small capital to be used for such purposes as were out- 
lined above. Truly, it is a magnificent showing they 
point to with pride to-day. 

In other parts of Austria-Hungary similar movements 
have been inaugurated aiming at the emancipation of the 
Slavs from the former Austrian-Teuton exclusive tenure 
of all the higher walks of life, but by no means with 
similarly brilliant results. These, too, besides the general 
human desire of advancement, have had their motive 



84 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

partly in race rivalry. But while by no means so far 
advanced as in Bohemia, the percentage of those Slavs 
in Moravia, Silesia, Galicia and in the provinces pre- 
dominantly settled by Slovenes, Croatians, Servians, 
Bosnians, etc., who have climbed np to the heights of 
intellectual and social life is annually rising. One must 
not forget, either, in this connection to mention the very 
large share which the Jewish element, in both halves of 
the monarchy, have secured for themselves. For this 
share is far greater than the Jews would be entitled to 
on a purely numerical basis. Indeed they not only enjoy 
a practical monopoly of the financial life of Austria- 
Hungary, but they also do so in certain professions, such 
as the medical, the journalistic, the manufacturing, and,, 
in some specialties, the legal one. That they dominate 
in the press of Austria-Hungary is of real significance, 
and as they avowedly or unavowedly, in their hearts, 
nearly all cherish tenets of Liberalism, something may 
be augured for the future of the country once the way 
becomes clearer towards progress. 

By an unobstructed road I mean, among other things, 
one freed from the incubus of red-tapeism and of a hide- 
bound and inane bureaucratism. This applies to Hun- 
gary almost as much as to Austria. Stiff formalism in 
conducting the smaller affairs of the state and in its re- 
lations with the taxpaying mass of subjects, is a curse of 
the Dual Monarchy which might be abolished without a 
great deal of effort. All those who have ever had any 
dealings with this stupid monster of bureaucracy in 
Austria-Hungary know how firmly lodged it is. It is a 
remnant of the days of absolutism, incongruous under 
constitutional government, and it ought to be done away 
with, for it not only wastes an enormous amount of time 
for the population as a whole, who whenever there is any 



INHERENT DIFFICULTIES OF IT 85 

enforced intercourse with officialdom are made to wait 
in the antechambers an unconscionable time, but it also 
involves the employment of an army of government 
henchmen who, for the most part, are superfluous and in 
their doings and attitude of mind strongly remind one of 
the Circumlocution Office. The attitude of mind of all 
these useless underlings is totally wrong. It is that of 
master towards the subordinate ; it seems to assume that 
all these people are there for the single purpose of 
bothering them and disturbing them in their comfort. I 
admit that when once you have caught the angle whence 
they view this world, you understand it all. They are 
not, as a rule, ill-natured, rude or unduly puffed up, this 
army of Barnacles. And they will blandly tell you their 
grievances if you take the trouble to inquire. They are 
all underpaid, these modern Sir Tituses, and usually have 
to eke out their income from private sources. They have 
to go through an expensive university course and then, 
for more years, as supernumeraries, serve the state 
gratis. What wonder they frankly look upon all this 
pestering public as their natural enemies, as creatures 
specially devised by an unkind Providence to interfere 
with their luncheon and coffee-house and card-playing 
hours. The idea never dawns on them that they are, 
in a manner of speaking, the servants of this hydra- 
headed public. So that is their point of view, and for 
the extremely limited stipend which the government pays 
them they doubtless do enough work in the Sealing- Wax 
or other line of office. But the real trouble is that nine- 
tenths of their labours are sheer waste ; that those legions 
of half -paid triflers might be condensed down to a few 
companies, and this to the vast benefit of the country as 
a whole. However, the Barnacles will never take this 
side of the matter. They will go down, some fine day, 



86 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIEE 

with all the colours at the masthead, thinking the world 
has come to an end. And meanwhile, so long as the fun 
lasts, all the solicitous mothers in Austria and Hungary- 
go on scheming and intriguing and knee-bowing to the 
end that their Tony or Arpad or Eudolph may, first, get 
an appointment under government, even if the initial 
salary be but twopence halfpenny per annum, and then 
to obtain promotion for him within about ten or fifteen 
years. "When he does get it his poll is sadly thinning, 
and when at last, at forty-five or fifty, his emoluments 
enable him to marry, he is bald, and nearly ready to 
retire and get a pension of another twopence halfpenny 
to the end of his days. The craze for the Staatsdienst, 
i.e., government service, is truly amazing in Austria-Hun- 
gary. The mania is well-nigh universal. All the middle 
class and the lower strata of the nobility, impoverished 
or not, are bitten with it. They will explain : ''It is the 
one career for a young man which offers a certainty" (a 
certainty to starve, one might answer, at least if the 
salary alone is to be depended on), *'and then, the pen- 
sion." The last remark clinches the argument. Surely 
this craze is in good measure responsible for the very 
general lack of individual initiative, of a healthy am- 
bition in young men. One is strongly reminded of the 
fact when debating this or other unhealthy symptoms in 
Austrian and Hungarian social and political life, that the 
Jesuits practically ran the whole monarchy for two cen- 
turies, and that the Concordat, the agreement with the 
Vatican in the last century, gave the whole education into 
the hands of the Church and made that not only keeper 
of the country's conscience but of its intellect as well. 
There is no broad outlook on life in them ; their vista is 
narrow, and the above matter is one of the most striking 
illustrations of it. 



INHEEENT DIFFICULTIES OF IT 87 

Bismarck in his Gedanken und Erinnerungen, those 
thoughts and reminiscences of his in which the concen- 
trated essence of that great cynic is contained, deals a 
good deal with Austria-Hungary. It was a country and 
people to which he had given much reflection, and some 
of his aphoristic remarks about it are mordant and piti- 
lessly true. One of them, though, is that if Austria did 
not exist, it would have to be specially created. He meant 
as a buffer state and a bridge to the Orient, and from his 
point of view that is quite true. But he always held the 
opinion that in the quality of its mind, Austria is about 
two centuries behind. Certain it is that in its officialism 
it calls urgently for reforms. For it is cumbersome, eats 
up an unnecessarily large portion of the country's 
revenues, and accomplishes more harm than good. There 
is, for example, the State Police, a huge body of under- 
paid detectives who have never prevented serious crimes 
or detected in time bodies of those plotters — irredentists, 
nationalists, etc. — ^that methodically undermined the 
structure of the state. Though a whole regiment of them 
went along with Archduke Francis Ferdinand on his last 
and fatal journey to Bosnia, they could not hinder the 
double murder. Yet this corps of drones, wholly in- 
competent as they are, are extremely vexatious and in- 
quisitive as regards any stranger or foreigner at all out 
of the ordinary run of affairs. They do not earn their 
money, but they make a great show and bustle, all to no 
purpose. Again the least and simplest business a man 
has with the Red-Tape Brigade involves from a week to 
a fortnight's loss of time, with personal attendance on a 
score of official whipper-snappers in as many stuffy little, 
cigarette-smoke perfumed backrooms, humbly petition- 
ing the creature of the moment to expedite your trifling 
matter. It has been calculated that to transact, for in- 



88 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

stance, such a small thing as the making out of a tax 
receipt, twenty-three officials have to have a finger in the 
pie, with as many signatures, counter-signatures, errors, 
beginnings all over again, and final adjustment. With 
all that, I must freely own, they are never cross. They 
are merely dilatory, and that with them is a chief merit 
of the Circumlocution Office. Things are always going 
on in this funny old gristmill; there is something doing 
all the time ; but it is never the right thing. Let us hope 
that the present young emperor, a highly estimable man 
despite his paternal blemishes, will do his best to scotch 
or kill this venerable monster, Red-Tape. It would be 
worth more than his offensive, a year ago, on the Italian 
front. 



CHAPTER VI 

CENTEALISATION AND DECENTBALISATIOF 

Austria-Hungary at the decisive turn of the road — A declaration by the 
late Emperor on initiating his reign — Sixty-nine years ago — It came 
to naught — Untoward events overwhelmed him — Unsound finances 
retarded growth — And the war of '66 did the rest — The position of 
Hungary again peculiar — For the centralising policy of Hungary 
necessarily reacted on that of Austria — Louis Kossuth on the mis- 
sion of the Magyar — Austria's Teutonic element still largely living 
in the past — ^Dread to face the real facts — "Condemned to be an 
eternal minority" — This war only has wakened them to see the issue 
clearly — The paroxysm of nationalism has wasted large part of the 
monarchy's life blood — Now is the time to cut the Gordian knot. . 

What has been written in this book on the race problem 
of Austria-Hungary has been written in vain if it has not 
brought the conviction home to the reader that the 
ancient monarchy has at last arrived at the decisive turn 
of the road. And this independent of the fact that the 
present war has made the whole world cognizant of the 
supreme crisis. For long before, years and years before 
swords were crossed on the battlefields, internal develop- 
ment in Austria-Hungary made it plain that things could 
not much longer go on as they had. There is a natural 
limit to everything, and that procrastinating system so 
long in vogue there and for which Count Taatfe, who 
kept the premiership for fourteen long and unfruitful 
years, had coined the phrase: ^'Es wird fortgewurstelt" 
(an untranslatable term of Austrian patois; about : We'll 
continue to live from hand to mouth), had about reached 

89 



90 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

the end of its tether. Something, even if the war had not 
come, was bound to happen in Austria-Hungary before 
long, something putting an end to the old ways and 
starting off on a new chapter, something destroying the 
decrepit old structure or else putting it on a brand-new 
foundation. In a correspondence I wrote from Vienna 
about a year before the outbreak of the present world 
struggle I remember I made use of the expression: "It 
is one of .the marvels of the age that this hoary monarchy 
is still somehow hanging together. But it cannot be for 
much longer, at least not on the existing plan. It must 
go to pieces." And this was said although by that time 
I had learned to love the country and people, was said 
without a grain of ill-will towards either ; simply because 
a thorough study of conditions had convinced me of their 
untenability. 

On December 2, 1848, a proclamation was issued from 
the archiepiscopal palace at Olmiitz, Moravia, wherein 
Francis Joseph, then a youth of 18, on succeeding his 
uncle, the Emperor Ferdinand, on the tottering throne, 
had declared: 

"Fully recognising, free of compulsion, the need and 
the high value of free institutions adapted to the times, we 
confidently enter the path which is to lead us to a glorious 
transformation and rejuvenation of the whole monarchy. 
Our homeland will rise anew, resting on the broad basis 
of equal rights and opportunities for all the peoples of 
the empire and of equal justice for all citizens before the 
law, as well as equal sharing of all representatives in 
legislation. ' ' 

Those were courageous words for a young man not yet 
out of his teens. They meant, if they meant anything at 
all, complete severance from the absolutism that had so 
far been the guiding principle of government. They were 



CENTEALISATION AND DECENTRALISATION 91 

spoken at a moment when Emperor Ferdinand, too timid 
and resourceless to breast the rising waves of revolution 
throughout the empire, driven from his capital to seek a 
refuge in the fortified town of Olmiitz, had abdicated and 
left an almost superhuman burden to this callow boy of 
18. But fair words, after all, are but fair words. In 
that year of European upheaval, in 1848, many another 
sovereign ruler had used glittering generalities and 
made brilliant promises to his duped subjects, only to 
forget them when the hour of danger was past. It was 
not much different with the young Emperor Francis 
Joseph. Under the overweening influence of his auto- 
cratic mother, the Archduchess Sophia, he did the like. 
A whole twelvemonth of hard fighting to maintain him- 
self in authority had yet to come and go before the crown 
sat firmly on his brow. And then — ^why, then he reverted 
once more for a number of years to the absolutism of old. 
The proclamation, looked at as a declaration of prin- 
ciples, came to naught. It is a fair question whether 
Francis Joseph should ever have been reminded again 
of these ''free institutions" he waxed so eloquent about 
in the hour of his accession if — this time at least — there 
had been no compulsion about it. It was the deeply in- 
volved state of national finances that acted on him as a 
spur. By 1855 these were in such a hopelessly entangled 
state that nothing was left for him but to remember once 
more his budget of promises. Austria at that time was 
on the brink of national bankruptcy. With a paper cur- 
rency of enforced circulation, yet sunk so low in actual 
value that it took six bills to equal one coin in the country 
itself, and with credit abroad gone, the monarch was 
forced to bethink him of summoning a parliament to be- 
gin and set things right. A complaisant parliament he 
wanted, of course, one to raise big taxes, to contract 



92 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

foreign loans, to pledge the support of the whole country 
as an asset. He did not get it, however. Still, it enabled 
him to keep the finances of the country barely above 
water. Not until 1867, in fact, not until after the un- 
fortunate issue of the war with Prussia, did Francis 
Joseph begin to realise how true Lincoln's saying was 
about nobody being able to "fool all the people all the 
time." Only from that year really dates the beginning 
of parliamentary life in the Dual Monarchy. Perhaps 
Francis Joseph had actually meant what he said in his 
proclamation of December 2, 1848. But if so untoward 
events overwhelmed him and made fulfilment of his word 
next to impossible. 

At any rate, with 1867 began parliamentary life in 
earnest. It was of a peculiar kind, though. Looked at 
superficially, there is a strong parallel between it and 
that of England. But the similarity ceases when one 
peers below the surface. For there is this vital differ- 
ence to be noted: England's parliamentary rule is real. 
There the King rules but does not govern. In Austria- 
Hungary the monarch both rules and governs. True, in 
the latter as in the former when the leading statesman, 
the premier — in Austria as well as Hungary — has failed 
in his avowed policy he resigns. But while in England 
in that contingency the monarch, under the unwritten 
constitution, summons the leader of the opposition and 
entrusts him with the task of forming a new cabinet and 
of mapping out for himself and his victorious party a 
new programme, without in the least interfering as to the 
character of the proposed new legislation, in Austria- 
Hungary it is different. There the monarch, in his ca- 
pacity of Austrian emperor or Hungarian king, as the 
case may be, calls upon another leader, talks things over 
thoroughly, indicates to him the chief desires of the 



CENTRALISATION AND DECENTRALISATION 93 

crown — i.e., Ms own desires — and questions him as to liis 
ability to range enough members of parliament on his 
side to carry out a policy in which the main features are 
to correspond with what the monarch, in his judgment, 
deems paramount to the welfare of the monarchy. Only 
such a one as is able to undertake the work on these terms 
is entrusted by him with it. There must be, therefore, 
substantial agreement between the views of this candi- 
date for the premiership and those of the monarch to 
make a new cabinet and a new policy feasible. In other 
words, this Austro-Hungarian parliamentarism is only 
the shadow of the real thing, not its substance. For the 
monarch rules and governs both. The line of conduct, 
in its leading scheme, is laid out by him. He is, there- 
fore, at least in some highly important respects, the 
parliament as well as the sovereign. And this state of 
things applies to Austria and to Hungary alike. It is a 
sham; a pretence. It is not, in its full sense, popular 
government; these two countries are not living, in essen- 
tial respects, under free institutions. But it is not to 
be denied that in all this the sovereign remains strictly 
within those bounds defined by the constitutions of the 
two countries. It is, therefore, constitutional govern- 
ment, only the constitutions are framed so as not to 
meet entirely the wishes of the people. 

Now in Austria, as shown elsewhere, the old, old policy 
of centralisation had broken down by 1867, and since 
then, in a half-hearted way, autonomous rule of the vari- 
ous provinces has been inaugurated. It has not gone far 
enough, this new system of granting semi-independence 
to the national entities composing the whole. But it has 
at least been tried for a number of years within some- 
what narrow limits. It did not meet with full satisfac- 
tion anywhere, largely because it stopped short of its 



94 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

goal, but also because in Hungary the contrary policy 
has been in practice since 1867. For that is one of those 
odd coincidences in history, that the Magyars, after 
themselves for several centuries suffering sorely under 
the former Austrian system of centralisation, adopted 
it themselves the moment they were enabled to do so 
under the terms of the Ausgleich which granted them a 
free hand in their own internal affairs. Li fact, in Hun- 
gary it took the pronounced form of denationalisation, 
applied to all non-Magyar nationalities dwelling within 
the borders of Hungary. This policy has been steadily 
and relentlessly pursued in Hungary for fifty years past. 
Every effective weapon has been used in its service. The 
nomenclature of towns, rivers, mountains, lakes, districts 
has been altered completely, newly invented Magyar 
names being substituted for the old ones — which were 
Rumanian, Slav, or German. A strict set of laws com- 
pels attendance at public schools where the language of 
tuition is invariably Magyar. A thorough knowledge of 
Magyar is necessary under the new dispensation in order 
to hold office, no matter how inconsequential, to transact 
business, in fact, do or accomplish anything whatever. 
The Magyar clergy has been a powerful ally of the 
Central government in Budapest in this campaign of 
rooting out anything not in consonance with these cen- 
tralising purposes. Of course, the Magyars in all this 
are propelled by powerful motives which to them seem 
perfectly sufficient. It was Louis Kossuth, the patriot 
statesman of 1848-49, who long ago formulated the dic- 
tum: ''We Magyars interrupt the Panslavic flood. Never 
the ambitious plans of Panslavism can be realised, except 
if Hungary be first cut up as was the mantle of the cruci- 
fied Christ." And these words form in a measure the 
guiding principle with most Magyars. It must be owned 



CENTRALISATION AND DECENTRALISATION 95 

that in this ceaseless crusade in behalf of Magyarism 
they have been extraordinarily successful on the whole. 
The census figures, decade after decade, are most eloquent 
witnesses of that. For they reveal that several millions 
of persons of non-Magyar stock have within the past 
fifty years yielded to compulsion, persuasion and other 
private or public agencies employed, and have joined 
the Magyar camp, forswearing bonds of race and blood 
in doing so. It is fortunate for the Magyars that that 
is the way their policy has turned out, for otherwise, with 
their small natural rate of increase (for the Slavic ele- 
ments the rate of increase being indeed nearly double 
that of the Magyars), they would not only have remained 
a steadily decreasing minority, but their whole system 
of nationalisation would have suffered shipwreck in the 
end. 

Of course the centralising policy pursued so ruthlessly 
in Hungary could not but react powerfully on Austria. 
It did so, in the nature of things, primarily on the Teu- 
tonic element there. That with its ten millions formed, 
numerically at least, a block of great force when opposing 
growing Slavic autonomy. Added to it was the better 
schooling, the greater wealth, the historic claims and 
the wider distribution of intelligence to promote their 
struggle for the retention of former predominance. Else- 
where I have described how despite these powerful van- 
tage points the Teutonic element has failed to keep its 
supremacy. But this fact has as yet scarcely been 
brought home to the Austrians of Germanic lineage. It 
was Bismarck who, in this as in everything else a realist 
before everything else, spoke of these Austrian Teutons 
as *' condemned to be an eternal minority." But though 
years have passed since the cruelly blunt word was 
spoken, the German Austrians have not yet dared to face 



96 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

the real facts. They, or at least very many of them, 
continue to blind themselves. They are still living largely 
in the past: in the past when ''they were Austria," the 
rest but secondary. It is truly pathetic to observe many 
of these men who will not look the truth firmly in the 
eye. I once discussed the present and prospective future 
of Vienna with an ''Urwiener" (one belonging to an old 
Vienna family) , an aged physician of more than ordinary 
intelligence. And I called his attention to the undeniable 
fact of the town becoming more and more Slavic each 
year, pointing to a row of street signs opposite, every one 
of which bore a Slav name. *'But," he retorted, ''these 
men all become good Viennese after a while. They marry 
here, and their wives make them learn German. ' ' It was 
no use debating with him. His race pride was too strong 
not to be powerfully shocked by his native town, once 
the greatest centre of Germanic civilisation, rapidly be- 
coming the greatest rampart of Slavicism. They will 
not see, and, therefore, they do not see. But this present 
war has done very much to open their eyes. The whole 
course of it has shown them that many things they fondly 
believed in are nothing better than fallacies. It has 
shaken these plethoric, easy-going folk of German Aus- 
tria out of their long sleep. It has brought home to them 
that they are hopelessly outdistanced, outnumbered, out- 
manoeuvred ; that the Slav of Austria is the coming man 
and will not any longer be denied his due. Few of them 
are powerful thinkers ; fewer still care to have the logic 
of cold fact as their chief finger post in life. But they 
have, now at last, in their majority begun to view this 
whole problem of race supremacy from the right angle. 
They commence to see the issue clearly and to write Finis 
under that long chapter of exclusive German-Austrian 



CENTRALISATION AND DECENTRALISATION 97 

triumph which, really came to an end quite some time 
ago. 

It will be a harbinger of better things to come for Aus- 
tria and Hungary when the paroxysm of nationalistic 
fever that has wasted such stores of energy to little or 
no purpose, really does come to a close. The sterile race 
strife has immeasurably hindered progress and pros- 
perity, quite aside from embittering, every hour in the 
day almost, mutual relations between the different 
peoples. And the hour has now struck to cut the Gordian 
knot. There is no smoother way to do it. Indeed, it 
must be cut. It can never be merely unravelled. Drastic 
treatment is the only one indicated for this evil. To 
longer persist in administering Count Taaffe's prescrip- 
tion, the ^^Fortwur stein/' would be sheer suicide. Aus- 
tria-Hungary is doomed unless she resolutely applies the 
surgeon's knife and cuts down deep, cuts out the cancei: 
of race strife with all its roots. 

The Ausgleich of 1867, though an extremely clever 
expedient at a time when a cut de sac had been reached 
that seemed to exclude any outlet at all, was the work of 
a prestidigitator, of a diplomat fertile in devising palli- 
atives. But it was not the work of a real constructive 
statesman. It could not endure. For it contained from 
the very start one fundamental error. It was based on 
the assumption that the Magyar and the Teutonic ele- 
ments were the two which could for all time be depended 
upon for supremacy; that they too would permanently 
keep the sceptre of government in a firm and unyielding 
hand; that they alone sufficed as dominant factors to 
have the monarchy as a whole hold its own in the march 
of time;, that they alone could neutralise the racial at- 
traction and aversions so powerfully moulding other 
nations; that these two, the Magyars and the Teutons of 



98 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

Austria, would form the economic and political forces 
shaping and developing the whole body. And that, of 
course, was a huge and fatal misconception. It pre- 
destined from the beginning to destruction the political 
edifice reared on the ruins of the ancient absolutistic 
pile. And it is now the question of making the foun- 
dation broader and surer than this present one. 



CHAPTER VII 

SOLUTION OF THE ENIGMA 

Late heir to the throne favoured the Trias in lieu of the Dual Monarchy 
— If he had lived a South Slavic kingdom would have been estab- 
lished, and Bohemia would have obtained far-reaching autonomy — 
Why the Trias would not solve the problem — It would leave several 
discontented nationalities — The only radical remedy is self-govern- 
ment for each race — Foreshadowed by Emperor Carl's recent throne 
speech in opening the Reichsrat — A daring experiment, but must be 
made — The status of Galicia — Hungary's consent to the newly in- 
augurated policy indispensable — Count Stephen Tisza's fall from 
power due to his opposition to broad manhood suffrage in Hungary 
— He fears the end of Magyar supremacy — Delicate negotiations 
now proceeding — Why the young Monarch deferred the oath on 
the constitution — The Ausgleich has run its course — It must be 
superseded — A general prognosticon of the Austria-Hungary of the 
future. 

When the bullet of that half -demented youth, Gavril 
Cabrinovic, put an end to the life of Archduke Francis 
Ferdinand, heir to the parlous throne of Austria-Hun- 
gary, it removed from the scene a man upon whom the 
hopes of the whole monarchy had been centred. For 
Francis Ferdinand had both the brains and the energy 
needed for the rejuvenation of the country. Personally 
he was not what might be called a pleasant sort of man. 
He was taciturn, rather rough and aggressive in his bear- 
ing, and a rigid disciplinarian, an out-and-out martinet 
in his official relations. Thus he was the exact antipode 
of his uncle, the late Francis Joseph, who united in his 

99 



100 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

person all the essential traits of the typical Austrian — 
being easy-going, full of bonhomie, somewhat lax in 
sexual morality, a temporiser by preference in politics, 
save only in army matters. In short, he had in a remark- 
able degree all the attractive qualities and all the sur- 
face good-nature of the Austrian of old stock, and that, 
without any doubt whatever, was chiefly what endeared 
him so greatly to his "liehe Wiener" (his dear Viennese), 
as he invariably styled them in his proclamations. I 
have heard stories about Francis Ferdinand, on the other 
hand, told me by persons in his immediate service, which 
explained his pronounced unpopularity with the masses ; 
stories revealing him in a decidedly unamiable light — 
severe, harsh, brusque. A couple of months before his 
violent death, while sojourning with his family at his 
exquisitely beautiful estate of Miramar, near Trieste, a 
small body of sailors from an Austrian war vessel in 
the harbour was despatched to serve on the two motor 
boats used for his requirements, and those men were 
strictly enjoined not to smoke during duty hours^ — ^which 
practically meant all day long. While waiting in the 
grounds of Miramar, the archduke caught, nevertheless, 
one of the lads twisting hurriedly a cigarette and setting 
it aglow. He not only gave him at once a terrific repri- 
mand — talking to him, too, in his own tongue, the Istrian 
dialect of Southern Slavic, and using such grossly ver- 
nacular expressions as ''swine," ''beast," etc. — ^but sent 
him back on board his vessel for a fortnight in the 
"brig." The old emperor, if such a thing had occurred, 
would probably have laughed or treated the culprit to 
one of his own favourite cigars — the "Virginia," or 
stogey. But this little incident painted Francis Ferdi- 
nand strikingly. He was fighting one of the besetting 
Austrian sins — for which the Austrians themselves have 



SOLUTION OF THE ENIGMA 101 

coined the term " ScMamperei," meaning lack of order, 
of system, of discipline — fighting it tooth and nail, be- 
lieving that only by overcoming it could Austria-Hun- 
gary again rise. The manner of his death again showed 
what he was. He had been warned of widespread dis- 
affection in the border districts of Bosnia and Hercego- 
vina, of plots hatched to ''remove" him. But he went 
because he deemed it his duty to do so. And even after 
the first bomb had been exploded in Sarayevo, right 
under his auto, he was not deterred from carrying out 
what he had set out to do. He was a man absolutely 
devoid of fear. 

With the characteristics of Francis Ferdinand, as an 
individual, the conspirators in Servia and Bosnia had 
little concern. What concerned them, and what made his 
** removal" incumbent, was something else. In him, the 
future ruler of Austria-Hungary, they dreaded the man 
who would undertake, seriously undertake, the difficult 
mission of reconciling all the Southern Slavs of the mon- 
archy to the Habsburg dominion. For he was known by 
them to advocate the establishment of a Trias as the 
sovereign remedy for Slav disloyalty and estrangement. 
He was stern, had an iron will, perseverance in what once 
he had decided upon, had definite, unshakable convic- 
tions as to the indispensable requirements of the Aus- 
tria-Hungary of the future. He was just the man, in a 
word, that the decrepit monarchy needed to be set up 
once more. All that, however, the Servian plotters cared 
little about. The circumstance that signed his death 
warrant in Belgrade was that Francis Ferdinand stood 
committed to the Trias idea. The Trias in lieu of the 
Dual Monarchy. The Ausgleich had reached, according 
to him, the end of its usefulness, and in place of it was to 
come a Triple Monarchy, a confederation of three dis- 



102 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

tinct political entities ; each part was to be independent 
of the others, save in a few reserved points. These 
reserved points were to be confined to absolute essen- 
tials^ — the field of foreign relations, political and economic 
treaties, army and navy — in the main, then, those pro- 
vided for in the Austrian compromise with Hungary of 
1867. Austria was to be one third, Hungary another, 
and a new South Slavic State, comprising Croatia, the 
Banat, Slavonia, Bosnia, Hercegovina, Istria, Dalmatia 
and the so-called Littorale with Carniola, the third. It 
was this conception (for which, however, the old em- 
peror, Francis Joseph, had not yet been won) which the 
Servian hotspurs and plotting patriots dreaded. And 
with reason. The idea itself had been slumbering for 
years in the subconsciousness of the Servian race. Dr. 
Sunaric, president of the Croatian Club in the Bosnian- 
Hercegovinian Sabor {i.e., provincial chamber), ex- 
pressed it some time ago in a political speech as follows : 
' '■ We can no longer submit to the fact that we seven mil- 
lions of Southern Slavs within the Austro-Hungarian 
monarchy, forming as we do as Servians, Croatians and 
Slovenes a linguistic and national unit, should enjoy no 
independence. We demand existence, under the Habs- 
burg sceptre, as an independent state. I am even of 
opinion that the Trialistic state idea might lead the Ser- 
vians now forming a small realm of their own to gravitate 
towards solidarity with us under the crown of the Habs- 
burgs. Emperor Francis Joseph, of course, is prevented 
from granting our wish for the convening of a Pan-Croa- 
tian conference, because he has made oath upon the 
constitution now in force, the one of 1867. But the new 
emperor will have a free hand before himself swearing 
to a constitution governing the whole monarchy." 
What this South Slavic leader outlined, the late heir to 



SOLUTION OF THE ENIGMA 103 

the throne, Francis Ferdinand, had thoroughly deliber- 
ated upon and mentally digested. His plan contem- 
plated, however, not alone the consolidation of all the 
Southern Slavs of the monarchy within one independent 
realm of their own. It went much farther. It intended 
to reconcile the Czechs of Bohemia and Moravia by 
granting them a (rather limited) autonomy, about on 
similar lines with that obtaining in Galicia. Francis 
Ferdinand, though of purely Teuton stock himself, was 
known as a Slavophil. He not only had mastered Czech 
completely, but had written much in that difficult tongue. 
He had likewise possessed himself of a familiar knowl- 
edge of the other Slav tongues spoken in Austria-Hun- 
gary, and the Serbo-Croatian language he spoke per- 
fectly. It is, of course, remembered that he fell in love 
with a Czech lady of noble lineage, and that she had 
gained his affection to the point of his persisting in 
marrying her against the strenuous opposition of his 
uncle and sovereign. For the probable issue of this 
union he had been, under the terms of the Austrian con- 
stitution, obliged to resign all claims to the throne, it is 
true. But the marriage itself was in all respects a most 
happy one, founded as it was on true affection and a 
lasting sense of gratitude on his part. For at a time 
when his health was low and, in fact, symptoms of in- 
cipient tuberculosis had become apparent, she nursed him 
so devotedly and with so much self-sacrifice that his 
recovery (after a stay in Egypt) was probably largely 
owing to her. The union itself was ideal, and so was 
the fate that sped the bullets which killed, almost in- 
stantly and painlessly, husband and wife seated side by 
side. 

All the bonds that bound him, therefore, to the Slav 
cause, sentimental and political, aided in ripening in 



104 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

Francis Ferdinand's mind the plan of an Austro-Hun- 
garian sweeping reform by establishing the Trias form 
of government and terminating the Ausgleich. Public 
and private utterances of his which, after his tragic end, 
found their way into some of the leading censored Aus- 
trian and Hungarian newspapers and periodicals, leave 
no doubt that his mind was fully made up to the close 
on that score. But there is just as little doubt, in the 
light of events which the present war has brought to a 
focus, that the life plan of this remarkable man, even if 
it had been carried out in the teeth of a determined Hun- 
garian antagonism, would not have solved the race prob- 
lem definitely. The war has stirred even sluggish Aus- 
tria to its deeps, but if Francis Ferdinand had lived and 
war had not broken out, it would have gone different, 
no doubt. Hungarian opposition to his plan — and it was 
well-known to them and had incited their hatred for him 
even before his accession, — would not have been easy, 
almost impossible, to overcome ; that much may be taken 
for granted. But suppose his plan had not miscarried; 
suppose the Hungarians had been made to see that the 
Ausgleich, while it had served their own turn admirably 
on the whole and for a time, could no longer endure, what 
would have been the result? For one thing, it would 
have left several discontented nationalities. The amount 
of autonomy which Francis Ferdinand was ready to 
concede to Bohemia would never have satisfied the 
Czechs. Neither would the three million of Ruthenians 
and the two million of Slovaks have been contented. Nor 
would the three million of Germanic stock in Hungary 
(the Saxons of Transylvania, the Swabians of the Banat 
and the peasant population of the Zips region) or the 
three millions and a half of Rumanians in Hungary and 
the Bukovina been at comfort. The fact, rather, that 



SOLUTION OF THE ENIGMA 105 

one of the hitherto neglected races, the Southern Slavs, 
had been given independence while they themselves were 
to drag their chains along even under this new dispen- 
sation would have increased their restlessness tenfold. 
Inevitably, with the example of their brethren of the 
South before their eyes, all these submerged fractions 
and fragments of the whole would have striven with re- 
newed ardour to gain what had been denied them, to gain 
it forcibly if need be, by armed risings, by concerted 
action, and the upshot would have been civil war of the 
most horrible kind. 

No, well-meaning as Archduke Francis Ferdinand 
doubtless was, fired by a noble ambition and by a grave 
sense of justice, his scheme did not go far enough. The 
only radical remedy for the ills which race strife has bred 
in Austria-Hungary is self-government for each and 
every part of the whole. The ideal must, in fact, be the 
establishment of something like a United States of Aus- 
tria-Hungary, only more so. That is, the self-govern- 
ment in each state of this prospective federation must 
be, to accomplish all that is desired, more complete than 
it is in its American prototype. Common ties must be 
confined to a very few. A historical survey, if that were 
necessary, would soon show the reason why. But I shall 
mention merely one chief reason. The American colonies 
when they declared their independence of England were, 
it must be admitted, a group of political entities but 
loosely hanging together, even more loosely than do the 
parts of the Dual Monarchy to-day. They were also 
drawn from very heterogeneous original sources. What 
could be, for example, more dissimilar than the Puritans 
of the Mayflower and the Cavaliers of Virginia? And 
each of these thirteen original colonies had traits so 
wholly setting it apart from the others as to make a 



106 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

union between them at that time seem folly. But there 
was, nevertheless, one potent tie between them all that 
the Austro-Hungarians of various stripe lack — the tie 
of one common descent, of one common tongue, of one 
common law, of one literature, one history, one set of 
main racial characteristics. And this in the end, against 
all divergent interests, sufficed to bring about solidarity, 
amalgamation, the marvels of the Melting Pot. For 
Austria-Hungary other reasons must be given to be- 
lieve in the feasibility of such harmony in union. There 
sentimental reasons are largely absent ; but material rea- 
sons are stronger and more pressing. 

It may be expedient to analyse the conditions there 
more closely. 

Austria-Hungary, as it exists to-day, contains one 
entire nationality, that of the Magyars, a race politically 
sagacious, domineering and strong in organisation, but 
not in itself numerous enough nor holding territory large 
enough to stand on its own bottom, so to speak, in these 
days when statesmen of various nations have begun to 
''think in continents." So long as the Magyars were 
able to contrive, no matter if by means scarcely defen- 
sible, the denationalisation of smaller races surrounding 
them and welding them into their own political system, 
things might go on relatively smoothly. But this brutal 
system seems now to become no longer feasible. The 
aroused national ego of the smaller races forbids it. So 
does the equally aroused conscience of the world. If 
Magyarisation is not possible any more, how can the 
Magyar core of Hungary, thrown suddenly on itself, hold 
its own? How can it make headway against powerful 
neighbours like Russia., or against a consolidated Ru- 
mania with a population exceeding its own by fifty per 
cent.? The whole political syllabus of the Magyar as a 



SOLUTION OP THE ENIGMA 107 

nation since 1867 has rested on the nnfair process of 
despoiling their neighbours and fellow-dwellers of what 
was dearest to them — their race soul, their language, 
their national aspirations. Once you deprive him of the 
chance to continue this game ad infinitum, you make him 
simply primus inter pares, the first among equals, no 
longer the tyrant and oppressor. Therefore, the Magyar 
will not yield up the political and social prerogatives he 
has enjoyed so long with impunity without a desperate 
struggle. But will he prevail? It is more than doubt- 
ful. The forces that contend against him are morally 
very strong. For they are composed not only of the 
strong desires of the races he has oppressed, but also 
of the consonance of world opinion. The Magyar, as I 
said, is politically sagacious. And for that very reason 
he will be the first to see that his old pretensions are no 
longer to hold sway; that it may be the part of high 
wisdom to make the best of a poor bargain. There are 
facing him alone on this proposition of consolidating 
the Southern Slavs, a body of men almost as numerous 
as his entire Magyar race, and nearly as desperate and 
valorous fighters in a good cause. This seems to me, 
briefly put, about the position of the Magyar just as soon 
as the plan of granting complete autonomy to his helots 
of hitherto, the submerged races of Hungary, has fully 
matured and is brought forward with all the authority 
and weight of unselfish patriotism. 

In this connection it is necessary to quote a few para- 
graphs from the recent throne speech of the young Em- 
peror Carl, May 31, 1917, in opening the new session of 
the Austrian parliament, the Reichsrat. In it he said : 

**I feel convinced that a happy development of our 
constitutional life is not possible, after the barren re- 
sults of the last years and under the extraordinary po- 



108 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

litical conditions during times of war — ^leaving out of 
consideration the Galician problem, for which my august 
predecessor has already shown the way — , without an 
expansion of the constitution itself and of the adminis- 
trative foundations of our entire public life not alone 
within the monarchy as a whole, but also especially in 
the separate kingdoms and 'lands,' foremost among them 
in Bohemia." 

This declaration in itself is very significant, as it fore- 
shadows in a manner not to be mistaken the plan of en- 
larging the functions, rights and privileges of each com- 
ponent part of the monarchy, and of apportioning to each 
a larger measure of independence and a more pronounced 
separate existence than they have so far enjoyed. While 
scarcely specific enough to enable the reader to erect an 
articulate political structure, the young ruler has gone 
about as far in outlining it as is possible in a speech 
from the throne. Such a speech is merely to serve as a 
finger post. Details have there no place. But the pur- 
port of the above passage is plain enough. However, 
his enunciation gains in vividness and meaning if it is 
supplemented by another statement of his that occurs 
towards the end of it. He there declared that while 
under normal conditions he should be ready to make oath 
to the constitution actually in force, under the peculiar 
circumstances he should be obliged *'to defer that solemn 
ceremony until a time which I trust will not be remote, 
a time when the foundations for a new, a strong and 
happy Austria, invigourated both internally and exter- 
nally, shall have been laid for generations to come." 

This, then, coupled with the preceding passage, ex- 
presses the intention plainly enough to recast the whole 
frame within which the political life of Austria has been 
enclosed for the past two generations. 



SOLUTION OF THE ENIGMA 109 

It shows clearly that the young monarch fully realises 
that he has come to a parting of the ways, and that the 
old order of things cannot and will not be further main- 
tained. Doubtless he also feels that it is a bold experi- 
ment he is resolved upon, but one that must be dared. 
Aged Francis Joseph had no longer the elasticity of 
mind, the vigour of body, to have braved fate in that way, 
to venture on an untrodden path. For such it is. In all 
modem history there is no parallel for such a projected 
rebirth of an ancient country as is here sketched, how- 
ever briefly and dimly, by this ruler of inexperience, yet 
undeniably imbued with the best motives. Youth is 
venturesome. But it wiU be one of the most astounding 
lessons of the longevity and indestructibility of seem- 
ingly outworn political entities if the experiment should, 
after all, succeed. 

For Austria the future status both of Bohemia and of 
Galicia remains to be fixed as the task beset with most 
difficulties. And to both these countries Emperor Carl 
referred particularly in his enunciation. They are hard 
nuts to crack, truly. As to Galicia we have got an ink- 
ling of this before. The population there, in round 
figures eight millions, is made up about as follows: In 
the western half, including Cracow, the purely Polish 
element is settled, about four millions; in the eastern 
with Lemberg for capital, the Ukrainian, or Ruthenian, 
exceeding three millions; Jews everywhere, about 
750,000; and the remainder, men of Teutonic strain, as 
officials, in some small colonies, as professional men, 
merchants, engineers, managers, manufacturers. The 
Ruthenian element is, generally speaking, wretchedly 
poor and ignorant, gravitating more or less towards their 
kinsmen, the Ukrainians, on Russian soil, Greek orthodox 
in faith, and although a people of infinite patience, honey- 



110 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

combed with disloyalty, discontent, with strong aversion 
towards their Polish masters. The Poles own seven- 
eighths of the soil. Even in the Ruthenian, the eastern, 
part of the province, the Poles are lords paramount, in 
possession of vast and princely estates, frequently given 
to absenteeism, spending their revenues very often at the 
international gaming tables of Monte Carlo and else- 
where; mostly highly educated, used to material luxury 
and despising the subject race that believes in gods of 
its own. There have been risings of the oppressed 
Ruthenian peasantry now and then; they were always 
drowned in blood. As to the economic conditions pre- 
vailing in Galicia full official figures are available. They 
have, besides, often been ventilated in the Reichsrat, the 
Austrian parliament. One of the most influential leaders 
of the Ruthenians in that body stated it publicly — and 
supported his statement with incontrovertible proof — 
that his people are living in almost incredible squalor, 
and that many thousands of them would starve annually 
if their kindred beyond the sea — husbands, fathers, sons 
—did not regularly send over remittances from their 
savings. He showed how the average Ruthenian peasant 
family numbers seven, and how they are supposed to 
make a living out of a farm embracing about four to 
five acres of arable land. Their dwelling is in most 
cases a self -erected hovel made of sun-baked clay, shelter- 
ing, besides, the horse or cow, chickens, pigs, etc. It is 
here, too, that illiteracy predominates with from 62 to 
78 per cent, of the total. The war has roused these poor 
people. They demand human rights. They demand the 
ballot (practically withheld from them by Polish intimi- 
dation or bribery), and they demand adequate repre- 
sentation not only in the Reichsrat, where they, although 
nearly composing the half of the population, are now 



SOLUTION OF THE ENIGMA 111 

outnumbered five to one by the Poles, but in the pro- 
vincial chamber as well. The disaffection of the Ru- 
thenian population in Galicia made itself unpleasantly 
felt for Austria during the war. There was much pro- 
Russian espionage. Austrian officers told me that in 
the early part of the war they had to suffer more from 
that than from the invading Russian armies. There was 
a time when hundreds of Ruthenian spies were sent to 
the gallows every day in Galicia. The Poles are, how- 
ever, the masters in Galicia, and they dread, even the 
fair-minded among them, the advent of the day when 
the Ruthenians will insist on the right to cast an un- 
trammelled vote. They dread it not alone as ushering in 
the end of Polish sway throughout Galicia and the eman- 
cipation of the Ruthenians from their old-time yoke, but 
just as much because of the dense ignorance of these 
men which in their opinion would bode no good to the 
welfare of the province as a whole. Hitherto and for 
the past fifty years the Austrian government has had, at 
every crisis, the united support of the Polish delegation 
in the Reichsrat, in exchange for allowing them to man- 
age their political home affairs in any manner they 
pleased. Now, however, with the coming of the new 
emperor and with the altered conditions brought on by 
the war, some measure of justice is to be meted out to 
the Ruthenians. This has tremendously stirred the 
Poles who threaten to break from their allegiance to the 
government, even to the dynasty. To insure a renewed 
loyalty on the part of the Ruthenians, besides, other sac- 
rifices and measures, in particular a distribution of land, 
are caUed for. Altogether the situation of Galicia is — 
no matter how the question of a re-established and, pos- 
sibly, a reunited Poland be finally solved — complicated 



112 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

and full of danger. It urgently demands wise states- 
manship. 

Then there is the Bohemian problem. If anything that 
is even more involved and of much longer standing. To 
bring about a compromise which would moderately 
satisfy both parties, the Czech and the Teuton Bohe- 
mian, seems out of the reach of human power. The very 
fact that the adversaries are so well matched in all but 
one respect (that being in numbers, in which, as we 
know, the Czechs with their four millions far outbalance 
the German Bohemians with two millions and a half), 
makes adjustment all the harder. Bohemia wants full 
autonomy (save in the two or three points where she 
must go together with the rest of the monarchy), and 
nothing short of it will content her. She wants, above 
all, a perfectly free hand in internal affairs, such as the 
Poles have had in Galicia, and she wants it in precisely 
the same way and for a similar purpose. That purpose 
being to oust the German tongue completely from public 
use and, as soon as may be, from private use as well. She 
wants to denationalise the German Bohemians, in other 
words, and erect a Czech supremacy in Bohemia so strong 
and so backed up by all the agencies of civil power as to 
stabilise it forever. That is their programme. They are 
no longer satisfied with equal rights. They intend to 
seize all the rights. This, of course, looked at as a merely 
retaliatory step for injustice done them in times gone, is 
easily understood from a Czech viewpoint. But un- 
questionably if two wrongs do not make one right, this 
policy is to be condemned. And to find a way out of the 
whole labyrinth of puzzling contradictions would seem 
indeed an almost superhuman achievement. It will be 
of great interest to watch from afar the great decisive 
battle which has now set in for Bohemia. 



SOLUTION OF THE ENIGMA 113 

In Hungary, it may be said, the great fight of read- 
justment is also on. The fall of Count Stephen Tisza 
from power marked the first clash. For that was owing 
to the reluctance of that statesman and of the hitherto 
ruling party — the party of National Labour — ^to grant 
legislation widening the scope of suffrage. He and those 
around him are afraid that to eliminate the restrictions 
in force, confining the right to vote to those possessing a 
minimum of property and education, and paying a min- 
imum of taxes, will mean the dispossession of the Magyar 
from his controlling influence over the realm. These re- 
strictions have permitted him, although but a minority, 
to elect a majority of members into the Hungarian par- 
liament and most of the district and provincial chambers, 
thereby dominating legislation and the whole political 
existence of the country. The new King of Hungary, 
however, has sided with the more progressive and less 
selfish parties in Hungary, those favouring thorough 
election reform and fairer treatment of the subject races. 
Delicate negotiations are now proceeding which will 
probably culminate in a more liberal era for Hungary. 
The crux of the situation is, of course, the attitude of the 
South Slavs. If Hungary consents to a complete separa- 
tion for Croatia, and the creation of a South Slavic state 
in which the other Serbo-Croats will enter, an enormous 
amount of dangerous and constant internal friction would 
terminate. Without that, however, it could not be truth- 
fully averred that a satisfactory solution has been found. 

If these things come to pass which I have here but 
roughly sketched it is indeed possible to make Austria- 
Hungary, so long one of the political eyesores of the 
world, once more a vital factor. It would, for the first 
time in the troubled history of the old monarchy, set 
really free the inherent forces for good in all these con- 



114 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

glomerate regions. It would liberate an amount of ver- 
satile talent so far hidden away in the dark, of artistic 
and industrial gifts scarcely dreamt of. And it would 
indeed mean, as the young emperor recently phrased it : 
a happier and more prosperous population. Which 
would also mean a distinct gain for the world. 



CHAPTER Vni 

POLITICAL LIFE 

Sharp separation between Austria atid Hungary — The whole poKtical 
foundation of Hungary radically differs from that of Austria — 
Two parliamentary sessions witnessed — In the Austrian Reichsrat 
a total absence of dignity — In the Hungarian Chamber of Deputies 
an air of ardent patriotism — Hungary has a broad aristocratic 
base — ^Austria on the other hand has always looked to the Dynasty 
for its politieal advance — In Austria the time-honoured motto has 
been, Divide et Impera — In Austria the Slavic communism and 
broad democracy running counter to the Germanic fealty to a leader 
and authoritative interpretation — In both countries the bitterest 
problems are adjustment of languages, of administration — Differ- 
ences in the parliamentary rules between Austria and Hungary — • 
In the latter now the franchise extension question — Narrow and 
broad nationalism — How the Ausgleich works, both politically and 
economically — Hungarian dreams of industrial efficiency. 

In all conunent on the political life of the Dual Mon- 
archy the sharp cleavage between the life, aims and 
methods of the two halves, of Austria and of Hungary, 
must be kept in view. Nothing, for example, could be 
more strikingly dissimilar than an average session of the 
Reichsrat in Vienna and of the Chamber of Deputies in 
Budapest. 

The structures in which the two legislative bodies are 
housed are both fine and impressive. The one in Buda- 
pest, standing close to the banks of the mighty Danube 
River, is evidently modelled after Westminster in Lon- 
don ; it rises in its white beauty and in its graceful spires 

115 



116 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

skyward in variegated splendour. The one in Vienna is 
as thongh it liad been transplanted from the rocks of 
Parthenon — classical in outline, covering great surface 
but of medium height, ornate with bronze sculptures of 
Athenian grace and suppleness, an ancient temple de- 
voted to the adoration of the gods. But which gods? 
As a matter of fact, Eris, the goddess of discord, has 
been worshipped most there. 

yividly I recall the last visit I paid this transcend- 
ently stately pile. It was in March, 1914. There was no 
ceremonial barrier to overcome. The doorkeeper in his 
mediaeval glory of tinsel and silver-tipped staff willingly 
let me pass. He may have thought that no stranger 
could eclipse the noise and confusion prevailing inside. 
For it was at the height of the obstructionist tactics em- 
braced by the opposition that I sought admission. If 
Pope's lines: For forms of government let fools con- 
test; What's best administered is best, ever was true, 
surely it did not apply to Austria and its parliament. 
For there is a total absence of dignity and efficiency 
there, and the bulk of the 500 delegates or thereabouts 
whom I saw; on entering the press gallery looked and 
behaved like a band of madmen. It was a question about 
the rights and privileges of one of the eight officially 
recognised *' national tongues," I think it was Ruthenian, 
that had wrought them all to such a fearful pitch. It 
was, I believe, a question which to an outsider appeared 
of minor importance. But to these men in the fore- 
ground of the immense hall it must have seemed a ques- 
tion of life and death. This is what burst on my aston- 
ished view: About a score of men, all decently clad, 
were seated or standing each at his little desk. Some 
made an infernal noise violently opening and shutting 
the lids of these desks. Others emitted a blaring sound 



POLITICAL LIFE 117 

from little toy trumpets; others strummed jew's-harps; 
still others beat snare drums. And at their head, like 
a bandmaster, stood a grey-bearded man of about 65, 
evidently the leader of this wilful faction, directing the 
whole pandemonium in volume and in tempo. The sum 
of uproar thus produced was so infernal that it com- 
pletely drowned the voice of a man who was evidently 
talking from his seat in another part of the house, for 
one could see his lips moving and the veins in his tem- 
ples swelling. Bedlam let loose! That was the im- 
pression on the whole. The obstructionist tactics, which 
I happened to witness at their zenith, were being car- 
ried out with the declared intention of overcoming the 
resistance to the measure advocated by the little minority 
of Euthenian delegates. After listening to this infernal 
concert for a brief spell, in fact until my nerves gave 
way, I inquired outside and heard the matter stated as 
I described it. I was told that not only this Euthenian 
fraction, but every other in the Eeiohsrat as well, in its 
fraction and committee rooms had stowed away, in a 
locked and safe place, a complete assortment of such 
instruments of torture — whistles and bell sleighs, mouth 
harmonicas, cow bells and trombones, specially manu- 
factured noise-producers warranted to overtop every- 
thing, etc., etc. Each party, each fraction, each faction, 
each individual delegate owned an arsenal of these 
things, merely for the purpose of making all legitimate 
business in the Eeiohsrat impossible, at the mere whim 
of one or a set of those ''representatives" of the Aus- 
trian people. Strange but true. 

It was, I think, Sydney Smith— or some other witty 
Englishman — who gave it as his opinion that the "solemn 
ass" was the most unbearable of the human species. If 
so, Austria is well off in that respect. Asses there are, 



118 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

plenty of them, both bipeds and quadrupeds — ^bnt 
"solemn" asses — ^no, never. Not one. Such an utter 
lack of dignity I have not encountered in any other par- 
liament of the world. There is no mace-bearer there. 
No "naming of names" — that dread threat in the Amer- 
ican Congress. No cry of " I spy a stranger ! " All this 
would be of no avail in the Austrian parliament. There 
they throw inkwells at one another; hold their fists in 
close proximity to their neighbour's proboscis; call not 
only names, but very foul names. The "speaker" — 
here they call him the president — ^is inured to all this. 
It leaves him cold. And he has absolutely no authority, 
no power to control or prevent all this; he cannot stop 
any of these outrages. When he intends to call any 
member to order, to rebuke any one, or to deprive him 
of the word — he is at once outshouted and his plan is 
frustrated. The only practical remedy he has is to 
suspend the session, and that, as a rule, is usually pre- 
cisely the thing that the obstructionist or obstructionists 
wanted. It is this utter lack of authority of the pre- 
siding officer of the Reichsrat that is responsible for 
the success of all the innumerable obstructionist cam- 
paigns waged there in the past. It is because of this 
that at the recent reconvening of the Reichsrat (after 
a lapse of more than three years) one of the chief items 
in the outlined programme of reform was the thorough 
alteration in the code of parliamentary rules, rules that 
have obtained unchanged for more than a generation. 
It has been anarchy systematised. 

Now, in the Hungarian parliament things proceed 
exactly in the opposite way. Count Stephen Tisza, the 
"man of iron" as he was called, while majority leader 
and premier during the most troublous period of the war 
and some time before, carried on a regiment of Spartan 



political; life 119 

discipline. On one occasion, wlien the opposition be- 
came so boisterous as to make business impossible, he 
called on the '* parliamentary guard," a small but effec- 
tive military body that had taken the oath of blind 
obedience to the speaker, and pointed to a small group 
of inveterate obstructionists. And when these would 
not yield, Tisza gave another significant nod, and the 
guards drew their sabres and prepared for slaughter. 
Then the most obstinate gave way. In the midst of the 
war I witnessed a stormy session of the Hungarian Cham- 
ber. A great onslaught had been made on Tisza by his 
ablest foe. Count Julius Andrassy, the leader of the 
great Constitutionalist Party, and that had been followed 
by further attacks made by Karolyi and Apponyi, who 
charged the statesmen in power with reactionism in with- 
holding the franchise even from the defenders of the 
country. The air was at white heat. An electric spark 
would have set it ablaze. But Tisza faced his foes like 
a lion. He bore the brunt of the spirited debate that 
followed. No insulting epithet fell from the lips of any 
of the speakers. Tisza 's henchmen were like a Eoman 
cohort. No break could be made in their ranks. They 
stood to their doughty leader like good men and true. 
The magic of numbers was with them, and they knew it. 
And victory perched on their banners. All done by and 
within strictly constitutional methods. And throughout 
one could feel that all these men, determined opponents 
though they were to the stern premier who was not their 
choice, remained Hungarian patriots, loyal to the core 
to the country of their birth, content to accomplish what 
they could by strictly parliamentary means — all Hun- 
garians in fact. By contrast what a humiliating spec- 
tacle did the Eeichsrat of Austria offer to view ! There 
the men of each little province, of each section of a prov- 



120 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

ince, thouglit only of that and let the remainder go by 
the board. 

The contrast typifies the peculiar character of each 
half of the Dual Monarchy. Let us see. Hungary is 
built up historically from a broad aristocratic basis. 
From days immemorial the lower nobility has been (and 
still is) the backbone of the nation. But not a nobility 
in the sense as elsewhere, not a relatively small class 
enjoying privileges earned by time-serving truckling to 
the whims and pastimes of pampered sovereigns. No. 
The nobility of Hungary from the first was the fighting 
portion of the nation. In award for the obligation to 
fight the battles of the country with all their sons and 
all their men, each of these members of a race of con- 
querors was given a freehold for himself and his de- 
scendants. The scions of these original nobles still form 
that part of the population who own the soil, and who 
mostly till it, too. The initial freehold has been shrinking 
in size; or rather, it has been divided and subdivided, 
share and share alike, among children and children's chil- 
dren, each son remaining noble, each son bearing the name 
and title of his ancestors. Much church land, it is true, 
much land once belonging to the crown or to some munic- 
ipality has been acquired by these nobles in the course 
of centuries, thus doubling and trebling perhaps the 
mass of it in bulk. But, on the whole, each member of 
this primitive, soil-bound, vigorous and warlike lower 
nobility owns a small estate, be it only fifty or be it five 
hundred acres, that he cultivates and whence he draws his 
sustenance, dwelling on his own soil and dying on it, 
leaving his patrimony undiminished. A sort of farmer- 
nobility, in fact. That, as I say, is the backbone of Hun- 
gary even to-day. It is. these men who have made Hun- 
gary what it is, and who keep it so. Of course, there 



POLITICAL LIFE 121 

are other elements in modern Hungary. There is not 
alone a powerful higher nobility, wealthy beyond the 
dreams of avarice and owning estates so large that they 
can drive with a fast team all day long without leaving 
their own acres. There are now numerous prospering 
and populous towns and cities, with commerce and an 
industry steadily growing under the fostering care of 
Hungary's statesmen. There are thousands of villages 
tenanted to-day by a free peasantry and rural labouring 
element more or less dependent on the nearest lords of 
the soil, whose serfs they were until the middle of the 
eighteenth century. But the rural nobility, the farmer- 
nobility, so to speak, is still the rock bottom of the nation ; 
those smaller noblemen of moderate means, too, dictate 
in the last place the politics of Hungary. They are an 
unsophisticated, narrow-horizoned lot, but they are also 
men of hard common sense who keep a sharp lookout on 
the destinies of the country. The heart of this abori- 
ginal Hungary is the Alf old, the low-lying, alluvial plain 
forming the most fertile portion of the whole, rich in 
black humus and heavy wheat and corn land, whence fab- 
ulous crops are drawn, one of the most remarkable re- 
gions of Europe in intrinsic wealth and productiveness. 
The other sections of Hungary group themselves around 
the Alf old. They are adjuncts, not only racially (as they 
are inhabited by Slovaks and men of Teutonic stock, by 
Serbians in the South and Croatians, by Eumanians in 
Transylvania, etc.), but economically as well. The heart 
that is pumping perennially fresh rich blood into the 
veins of the country is the Alf old. That is the real Hun- 
gary. And there, too, you still find Hungarian life in all 
its picturesqueness, in its pristine virtues of hospitality 
and valour and strong patriotism. There you find the 
primeval czikos, the horseherd. The Bakony Forest with 



122 AUSTEIA-HUNaAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

its immense droves of savage swine is no more, and wheat 
fields are bobbing in the breeze instead — ^but the village- 
studded region is still as distinctively Magyar as it was 
centuries ago. 

Thus in its core Hungary is yet a bucolic country, 
resting safely on its foundation of vigorous lower no- 
bility, a land of rustics with all the good and bad points 
of these. Above all, a self-reliant land with a liberty- 
loving, an independence-loving population. And this is 
true even of the cities. Nay, more. Even the Jews of 
Hungary — about one million of them there are — ^have 
imbibed something of that spirit. They are not timid, 
cringing creatures as in Russia. They, too, are free- 
men, with the courage and self-respect of freemen. The 
Magyar values them exactly for what they are, and does 
not inquire into their creed or parentage and antece- 
dents. That is why in Hungary there are so many 
valiant, patriotic Jews. 

But now look at Austria. There the population is 
predominantly Slavic — about two to one, roughly speak- 
ing. These Slavs, from the very nature of their becom- 
ing Austrians, the exact manner of which has been de- 
scribed elsewhere, cannot have much of that sentiment 
denominated patriotism. To acquire that there was 
neither time nor opportunity. Divide et impera has 
been the old Habsburg motto as to them; to play off one 
against the other. Remnants of former more or less 
powerful Slav states, cowed and under the domination 
of their priesthood, their inevitable destiny it was to 
become provincial in their thoughts and aspirations. 
Again attention must be called to the undeniable historic 
and ethnologic fact that the Slav does not seem to be 
gifted as a state-builder. Of course, Russia will be at 
once pointed to in refutation. But on the contrary, 



POLITICAL LIFE 123 

Russia proves the contention. Russia, when left to her- 
self, was a jumble of small, impotent states, a number of 
them, like Pskov, Nizhni Novgorod, Eyasan, etc., half- 
communistic republics. They were knocked into a heap 
by the invading Mongolians, and for a number of cen- 
turies Slavic Russia was under the heel of the Golden 
Horde, fawning, submitting. And even when, under 
Ivan the Terrible, Muscovy forged to the front she had 
again to battle for many years of dissension against the 
Polish yoke, until she herself came under the knout of a 
native set of despots, the Romanoffs, upset at last in a 
night. And now once more Russia is plunged into chaos, 
with the old tendency uppermost of splitting into innu- 
merable tiny units, with the ancient spirit of village 
communism, the mir, cropping out to the surface. 

So, too, it has been with the Slavs of Austria. What 
elsewhere is love of country, a love of country as large 
and as powerful and as uniform as circumstances permit, 
is with the Slav the love of his narrow-bound home, of 
his province, his town, his commune. Under such a 
system the Slav rests content. Bohemia was content 
with it until at the time of Boleslav the Cruel the judges 
of her zupa (her village councils) ceased to be elective. 
None of the Slav empires could live for long. The Slav 
seems to see his ideal of government in the small unit, 
in the village commune. This has been evident from 
the remotest historic times. To oppose the stronger 
Germanic will for a powerful and efficient state suprem- 
acy the Slav had nothing but his affection for his native 
section. The only effective link tying him to Austria 
was, and is, the dynasty. That he has looked upon, when 
everything else failed, as something attaching to him 
personally. He has so regarded it for centuries. What 
he received out of the hands of this dynasty in the way 



124 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

of an amelioration of his political or economic condition 
he has taken as a welcome gift. Independence, free insti- 
tutions he has (with one or two notable exceptions) not 
striven for as things in themselves desirable, but at most 
as things benefiting his province, his village, and solely 
and inalienably tied up with the latter. No bond of com- 
mon descent, no admiration for superior prowess has 
leagued the Slav peasant or serf with the nobles and big 
landholders of his native province. In large proportion 
these nobles were not even of his race, and in everything 
he had little or nothing in common with them. Besides, 
where the Magyar is a natural aristocrat, tempered only 
in this feeling by his natural love of freedom and his 
sense of fairness and justice, the Slav is by natural pro- 
clivity a broad democrat, regarding all as his brothers, 
a communist almost. The sacredness of private prop- 
erty ownership is a sentiment to which the Slav soul 
responds but feebly. 

Set against this the chief characteristics of his f ellow- 
Austrians of Teutonic stock — their strict ideas of private 
ownership; their fealty to the leader; their meticulous 
sense of order, cleanliness, system — all conceptions for- 
eign to the Slav of pure lineage. That the Czechs in 
some of these respects are exceptions must be referred 
to — and are striking proofs of the fact — their long and 
intimate relations with their Germanic neighbours. 

But after all, practically there are two points of strong 
resemblance in the political life of Austria and of Hun- 
gary. In both countries the knottiest problems are those 
of language and race. To these, internally, everything 
else is subordinated. The whole mechanism of adminis- 
tration turns on this. As in Austria, in Hungary also 
the attempt has been made, not as an experiment but as 
the cornerstone of the whole internal polity, to rule a 



POLITICAL LIFE 125 

mimerical majority by a minority. This has been done 
for a long time, in most instances and for most provinces 
for centuries, and for the .past fifty years it has been 
done under cover of popular government, by the aid of 
a cleverly manipulated parliamentary system, one that 
gave the shadow but not the substance. These, then, are 
the points in common in the political life of Austria and 
Hungary. But while thus a bond, in a sense even a unity 
of purpose, is created between the Teutonic Austrians . 
and the Mag^^ar Hungarians, one which goes so far as 
to overcome the otherwise very vigorous Germanophobe 
sentiment in the Magyar breast and to lead him to wish 
the Teutonic Austrians success in their anti-Slav policy, 
as directed against the common foe, even to co-operate 
with them at his end of the line, there are nevertheless 
striking differences between the two. The circumstances 
are quite dissimilar. The Magyar minority is a homog- 
enous whole, possessing all the strategic advantages. 
The majority, not nearly so large a majority as is the 
Slavic one in Austria, presents no united front. It is 
moreover composed of three racial fragments — a Teu- 
tonic one, split up and settled in Transylvania, in the 
Zips region of northwestern Hungary, and in the Banat, 
in all about three millions strong, scattered geographi- 
cally and only sympathising one with the other for the 
sole reason of common descent ; the Rumanian one, dwell- 
ing for the most part in Transylvania, with smaller par- 
ticles in the Banat and throughout the remainder of 
Hungary, altogether neither in creed, in energy nor in 
education and material development fit to cope with the 
Magyars; and lastly, the Slavic tribes, such as Slovaks 
and Ruthenians in the northwest and northeast, Croa- 
tians and Serbs in Slavonia and Croatia, divided from 
one another by difference in language, in faith, in his- 



126 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

torical development, and held but loosely together by the 
one bond of similarity of race. In this way and by reason 
of an ardent belief in their own destiny, as well as by the 
prestige of their political autonomy and of a realm 
created by them and held against all comers for a thou- 
sand years, and also by their undeniable political superi- 
ority and their marvellous capacity of assimilation, the 
Magyars of Hungary are successfully maintaining their 
supremacy. That the case is otherwise in Austria we 
have seen. There the Teutonic Austrians are not alone 
in a minority of one to two, but they are themselves but 
fragments, greatly modified in every respect from the 
original stock, from the larger people over in Germany. 
They have to face among their Slavic adversaries one 
whole race, the Czechs, and the Czechs happen to be that 
branch of the vast Slav family possessed of stern quali- 
ties, among them persistency and vigour ; and to make at 
all headway against the Slavic flood surrounding them 
they are obliged to become the allies, from political 
measure to measure, of the Poles of Galicia, sanctioning 
the latter 's policy of ruthless suppression of the Ruthe- 
nians, thereby incurring again the deep hostility of these 
and of the Slovenes and Rumanians of Bukovina. In 
point of wealth, too, and in industrial efficiency and in- 
tellectual progress the Czechs are a close second to the 
Austrian Teutons. So that, let them turn whichever way 
they will, their tenure of power is always insecure and 
subject to sudden reversal. Geographically, too, their 
situation is not nearly so favourable as is that of the 
Magyars. For whereas the latter occupy the very centre 
of Hungary and that part of the total territory by all 
odds the most fertile and valuable, the Teutonic Aus- 
trians are seated, for the most part, in less dominating 
portions of the empire. The Teutonic Bohemians, one 



POLITICAL LIFE 127 

of the most progressive branches of the race, even occupy 
the outskirts, the ridge of the kingdom, so to speak. The 
Germans of Upper and Lower Austria are surrounded 
on all sides by Slavs ; and so are their brethren of Silesia 
and Moravia. In short, with all their other disadvan- 
tages, the Teutonic Austrians combine those of unfavour- 
able sites for purposes both of offence and defence. To 
offset that somewhat they are heirs to a tongue which is 
among the leading ones of the world, both as to its being 
a medium in international intercourse, in science, com- 
merce and art. While, on the other hand, Magyar is a 
language which can never have more than a circum- 
scribed circulation, and none of the Slav idioms of Aus- 
tria, whether it be Czech, Polish, Slovene or Ruthenian, 
can in any essential respect compare with German. Yet 
here is the curious fact that notwithstanding all these 
drawbacks the Slav idioms spoken of have gained with- 
out exception during the last fifty years over the Ger- 
man within the territories where those Slavs formed the 
ruling element. In Bohemia the fact is most startling, 
perhaps; for there the loss of German has been some- 
thing like thirty per cent., when compared with, say, 1860. 
But in Galicia, too, Polish has scored an easy victory 
over the former almost universal use of German, facili- 
tated, no doubt, by the concession made in 1867 to Galicia 
of instituting Polish the language of public life — in the 
provincial administration, in the courts, etc. Even 
Ruthenian has made great headway in Eastern Galicia, 
and so has Slovene in Carniola, Carinthia and Styria. 
And Italian, the common vernacular in the southern 
Tyrol, in Istria and the district of Trieste, has displaced 
German completely in those regions. The incentive of a 
steadily growing race consciousness and race pride has 
been behind all these changes, of course. In Hungary, 



128 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

however, this motive has not been strong enough to over- 
come the steady Magyarisation tactics of the Hungarian 
government. There, on the contrary, the tongue spoken 
by the ruling race, the Magyar, has gained. The suc- 
cessive tables of the Hungarian census, published be- 
tween 1870 and 1910, and which go into all these details 
with scrupulous fidelity, furnish astounding proof of the 
marvellous success of the Magyar propaganda, coupled 
of course with special laws enacted by the Budapest par- 
liament with the distinct purpose of furthering these 
nationalisation aims, such as making the teaching of 
Magyar in all Hungarian schools (no matter even if 
there be not a single school child of Magyar parentage 
attending) obligatory; making a thorough knowledge of 
Magyar compulsory for all candidates for state offices, 
no matter how insignificant ; paying premiums out of the 
public funds for scholarships in Magyar, etc., etc. The 
sweeping victory thus achieved in spreading the use of 
a language intrinsically among the most difficult to learn 
in the universe, and one which sixty years ago had not 
even the beginnings of a literature, is among the most 
astounding things recorded for the nineteenth century. 
One additional feature contributing to the relative 
political prosperity of Hungary, when compared with 
the glaring failure of Austria in this respect, has been 
the efficiency of Hungary's parliamentary regime. And 
this again has been, to some extent, at least, due to the 
difference between the parliamentary rules obtaining in 
both legislative bodies. Those in Hungary have been 
framed so as to permit the presiding officer at all times 
full control of the house ; those in Austria are marked by 
impotence. It will be of great interest to watch during 
the ensuing months the course of events in the two bodies. 
For in both measures are being deliberated upon which 



POLITICAL LIFE 129 

will stir political passion to its depths. In Hungary the 
proposed extension of the franchise, enlarging it into 
something analogous to manhood suffrage, will bring the 
entire reactionary forces of that country to the field, 
and these are, after all, still very considerable and of 
far-reaching influence. And in Austria not only the 
deficient parliamentary set of rules are to be amended, 
but the bitterest fight will be waged on the proposition 
to make German again formally the *' language of public 
intercourse" within the empire, which it formerly was. 
This indeed might be termed a war measure; in so far 
at least that the practical demands made on the admin- 
istrative machinery of the country (on the railroads and 
the transportation system more particularly) convinced 
all unprejudiced persons that the sole use of some one 
language for these purposes was absolutely required, 
and in the nature of things that one language in Austria 
(out of the eight idioms there officially recognised) could 
only be German. Still there will be a bitter fight on it, 
no doubt. For in Austria this question of language has 
acquired dimensions more than commensurate with its 
intrinsic importance. It is never judged from merely 
sensible and utilitarian points of view, but nationalism 
is always intertwined with it. This manner of looking 
at the whole problem indeed is not altogether confined 
to Austria either. The other half of the realm has its 
share of it. To illustrate that I may briefly relate a little 
incident of travel. I had to undertake a trip from 
Vienna to Agram (Slavic: Zagreb), the capital city of 
Croatia, and in going there had to cross, of course, con- 
siderable Magyar territory. There, in the train and on 
the part of the government train officials — conductor, 
baggage master, guard, engineer, firemen, uniformed 
policemen, down to the boys looking after the water 



130 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

supply and selling newspapers or refreshments, every- 
body was orthodox Magyar. Nothing but that idiom met 
the ear. But after the last Magyar station was passed, 
and the train began to roll over Croatian soil, a startling 
metamorphosis became apparent. Now nothing but 
Croatian was permitted. My few laboriously acquired 
phrases of Magyar were wasted. Everybody pretended 
not to understand them. ''Talk Croatian!" now became 
the battle cry. The very conductor, in punching my ticket, 
had been transmogrified into an enthusiastic, an aggres- 
sive Croatian. I had to forego the purchase of some 
liquid refreshment, for even my wheedling ''Pivo" (one 
of the few Czech words I happen to know) was scorned, 
as not being genuine Croatian. And on the journey back 
I underwent the same experience. The rapidity with 
which, as the respective border was passed, everything 
and everybody changed into another nationality was 
grewsome. It took one's breath away. They are all 
morbid on this point, it seems. Although they may — 
and often do — possess a perfect knowledge of the hated 
tongue of their respective ''oppressor," they will not 
acknowledge it. That would be sacrilege in their eyes. 
If they know a few syllables of English or French, for 
example — these being considered "neutral" tongues for 
the time being — they will make shift to convey their 
meaning to you. But for the Croatian to talk or even 
understand a word of Magyar, or for the Czech a word 
of German — perish the thought! 

The Ausgleich of 1867 being the fundamental com- 
promise between Austria and Hungary, of course it is of 
immense weight in the relations subsisting between the 
two countries. Here I will confine my observations 
mainly to the economic results of it. Like every com- 
promise this understanding, renewable every ten years 



POLITICAL LIFE 131 

under conditions of atrocious difficulty, has not given 
full satisfaction on either shore of the Leitha. Some 
of the objections to it are made in good faith and lie in 
the fact that nothing human is perfect ; but other objec- 
tions are brought up, either in Austria or in Hungary, 
chiejfly because political weapons can be forged out of 
them. Austria since 1867, owing to the terms of this 
Ausgleich which vouchsafed to that country, practically 
if not in express terms, the whole Hungarian market for 
industrial and commercial exploitation, has made enor- 
mous strides in manufacturing. The output of Austria, 
in fact, in all industrial products has quadrupled in 
volume and value within the last fifty years past. Two- 
thirds of this output has gone to Hungary. In 1913 (the 
last fiscal year for which complete figures are available) 
the worth in money of these Austrian exports to Hun- 
gary mounted to about $600,000,000 in American money. 
The whole industrial situation in Austria has steadily 
adapted itself to this state of things. Hundreds of cotton 
and cloth mills in Bohemia and Moravia would go to the 
wall if this outlet were closed to them. It was only in 
the midst of the war that the first Hungarian gun works 
(for heavy calibres) were inaugurated in the north- 
western part of the kingdom. Up to that time every 
rifle, every weapon, every siege gun used in the Hun- 
garian army was of Austrian make ; and so forth. But 
in Hungary there had been from the start a strong and 
influential part of the nation wholly dissatisfied with the 
Ausgleich, not only from political motives, but from 
economic ones as well. This section, the chief mouth- 
piece of which is the Independence Party, with men like 
the Karolyis, the Apponyis, the Batthyanys, the Jusths, 
the Ugrons at the head, argued that this complete eco- 
nomic dependence of Hungary on Austria in all questions 



132 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

of industry and finance, worked not alone against com- 
plete separation — an ideal striven for by this party — 
but also against the future rise of Hungary as an indus- 
trially potent country. 

Theoretically no doubt the spokesmen of the Independ- 
ence Party are quite right in this contention. But it is 
a question whether, first, Hungary is intended by nature 
for a pre-eminently manufacturing centre, now or at any 
time; for its geological formation seems to have pre- 
destined it for an agricultural country above all. And, 
next, it is a further question whether it would be rational 
under these circumstances to make the attempt of trans- 
forming Hungary into a land of industrial proclivities. 
With radically changed conditions, perhaps, such a thing 
might be feasible ; but at present, and for as long a period 
as it is humanly possible to forecast the future, it would 
decidedly not pay Hungary to set deliberately to work to 
turn herself from an agricultural into a manufacturing 
country. True, in Transylvania there are productive 
mines of all kinds : oil and coal, iron and copper, silver 
and gold, lead and zinc, etc. And out of them minerals 
and petroleum and fuel are taken in increasing bulk. 
Again, more paying mines are doubtless awaiting ex- 
plorer and exploiter. Probably, too, there are still other 
deposits undiscovered and situated on Hungarian soil 
hitherto neglected. But the sparsity of railroads, the 
lack of navigable canals, the dearth of liquid capital, the 
want of seasoned and enterprising experts, and other 
factors are all handicaps. The same defects apply to 
the rise of an industry of general scope. However, what 
will not national pride and enthusiasm accomplish ! Cer- 
tain it is that the Hungarian people as a whole, even 
otherwise cool heads of sound judgment, such as Count 
Julius Andrassy and even Tisza and some of the latter 's 



POLITICAL LIFE 133 

supporters, like the Counts Szechenyi, Erdody, for the 
past twenty years has deliberately entered the arena as 
a manufacturing one, in competition with the Austrian. 
To make this possible at all, the Hungarian government 
had to subventionise all these manufacturers; to grant 
them loans on easy terms ; to pay premiums for finished 
products of a certain degree of excellence ; to donate large 
sites ; to abate taxes ; to let in raw materials duty-free ; 
to hold expositions and spend state money on advertising 
— in a word, it had to encourage this baby industry in 
all possible ways. And the results so far have been 
mediocre. Austria on her part has not viewed these 
efforts with complacency. Her whole economic policy is 
so adjusted as to afford a large and certain market to 
Hungarian products of the soil, and with such preferen- 
tial tariffs in force the agricultural commodities of Hun- 
gary have practically enjoyed a monopoly in Austria, 
obtaining big prices and enabling the cattle and wheat 
raisers in Hungary to count with the certainty of a price 
for every bit they had to sell that was largely deter- 
mined by themselves. Thus, Austria, having adjusted 
her own production to suit the needs of Hungary, felt 
she was not treated equably when Hungary made every 
effort, even at great sacrifice, to make herself independ- 
ent of Austrian industry. Much bitter feeling has been 
the result. It came to a head when during the war, at a 
time when Austria was cut off from all other sources of 
supply and her population, habituated for fifty years 
past to have Hungary sell her the large surplus of her 
crops, Hungary failed in her customary role of provider 
with the necessary foodstuffs. As hunger pinched more 
and more and flour was no longer procurable, Austrian 
indignation at what was construed as rank Hungarian 
selfishness or worse, rose to unparalleled heights. That 



134 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

in Hungary all along there was comparative plenty of 
the necessaries of life, was notorious, as well as the fact 
that Tisza, the premier of Hungary, looked with indiffer- 
ence at the sufferings of the other half of the monarchy. 
And the explanations now and then appearing, to the 
effect that the Hungarian people had only just enough 
for themselves to eat and were unable to export more 
than a small part of their produce, had no effect on 
popular opinion. 

The Ausgleich is renewable every ten years. It ought 
to have been renewed by now — for the decade 1907-17 
has just elapsed. To deliberate on this delicate and 
extremely complicated matter, as well as to submit the 
final result of these deliberations for ratification to the 
parliaments of the two countries, is the duty of a unique 
body of men, called the ''delegations." These are made 
up from members of both houses of either parliament — 
from the House of Magnates and the Chamber of Depu- 
ties in Hungary and from the House of Lords and the 
House of Delegates making up the Eeichsrat (or parlia- 
ment) of Austria. These delegations have already for 
some time been at work, starting in about a twelvemonth 
ago, but their task is rendered this time peculiarly diffi- 
cult owing to the unsettled political conditions of both 
countries and the uncertain outcome of the war. Certain 
it is that in the state of public sentiment, both in Austria 
and Hungary, there are great hindrances in the way of 
a mutually satisfactory settlement. It would lead too 
far to mention these in all their details. But it may be 
said that Austria, being both the more populous and 
the wealthier half of the Dual Monarchy, has heretofore 
had to pay, as her share towards the upkeep of joint 
institutions, such as the army and navy, the customs 
department, etc., two-thirds of the whole, leaving but one- 



POLITICAL LIFE 135 

third to Hungary. Even this has not satisfied Hungary, 
and there has always been necessary the greatest amount 
of patience and of self-control on the part of the dele- 
gQjtions to come to a solution, especially as the press of 
the two countries has naturally taken sides for or against 
each debatable paragraph. Undoubtedly it will be the 
same this time. In Hungary the Independence Party has 
of late gained much ground, and this party, of course, is 
against the Ausgleich in toto, repudiating it in advance. 
In Austria, on the other hand, there is much violent anti- 
Hungarian feeling, due to war famine and to other facts 
for which Hungary, right or wrong, is held responsible 
by the masses. It will, therefore, be of great interest to 
watch the snail-like progress of the Ausgleich proceed- 
ings, no matter how the war itself may end. 



CHAPTER IX 

CAUSES OF POLITICAL BACKWAEDISrESS 

The chief one is political immaturity — Progress was in all cases the re- 
sult of dynastic condescension — "Authority" the watchword — 
Austria scarcely influenced by the western growth of Liberalism — • 
The French Revolution left the masses of Austria and Hungary 
untouched — No lack of political parties, but their leaders use catch 
phrases merely to entrap voters — Liberalism in the Dual Monarchy 
in its chief representatives of thought and action — ^No common aims, 
no common focus, no common propaganda — Whole movement but 
sporadic — Paralysed by the race problem — In Hungary the whole 
matter more simplified — There Liberalism is less dependent in its 
efforts on the question of race — Extension of suffrage — Opponents 
of such a reform — But for the monarchy as a whole the precarious 
political situation of the past twenty years has tended to cloud 
the issue — Low state of popular education as a contributing factor. 

As one looks back upon the long and tortuous history 
of that loose-joined body of states and provinces known 
since 1867 as the Dual Monarchy, it becomes apparent to 
the observer why the people of Austria-Hungary are 
politically backward. For chiefly their historical de- 
velopment is responsible for the fact. In the case of 
the one-half, of Hungary, the long-continued and almost 
unbroken struggle to maintain themselves against the 
might of the conquering Crescent, a struggle lasting for 
about 350 years, makes it plain why this people, who, as 
early as 1222, was already so far advanced on the road 
leading to thoroughly liberal institutions as to wrest 
from its king a Magna Charta of popular rights even 

136 



CAUSES OF POLITICAL BACKWARDNESS 137 

more sweeping than that obtained by the Barons of 
England at about the same time, actually retrograded 
instead of advancing farther. Inter arma leges silent. 
Incessant war is no promoter of civic freedom. Indeed, 
if the Magyars had not been endowed by nature with a 
strong love of independence and free institutions, the last 
vestiges of those must have vanished in this bloody strife. 
As it was progress was much retarded by the unfavour- 
able conditions prevailing until 1683, when the Turks 
for the last time penetrated as far as Vienna, and even 
after that, until the Peace of Passarowitz. As for Aus- 
tria, the abnormal growth and development of it would 
alone go far to explain the political backwardness of its 
masses. There was no homogeneous soil on which that 
tender plant, freedom, could take root and spread its 
branches. The various provinces and ''lands" falling, 
one by one, under the dominion of the Habsburgs, not 
only spoke different idioms and showed a diversity of 
qualities, but they also stood on no common level of 
intellectual or political development. In every sense 
they were far removed from the progress of the West 
which there slowly gained headway until, from 1789 to 
1794, it grew into a storm that upset the stoutest ram- 
parts of mediaeval feudalism. Thus, when all Europe 
and America were ringing with the exploits of the great 
French Revolution, when civic freedom was born with 
severe pangs and great bloodshed, and proclaimed to all 
the world, only faint echoes of it all penetrated as far as 
Austria-Hungary. And all through the Napoleonic 
earthquake these eastern countries went on their slow, 
somnolent way. Gross abuses of Church and State con- 
tinued to flourish there. The peoples inhabiting them 
still groaned under these. Serfage even was not wholly 
abolished until later. All these peoples were simply not 



138 AUSTBIA-HUNaARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

yet ripe for freer, more responsible forms of govern- 
ment. Nay, for decades after, until the middle of the 
19th century, both Austria and Hungary were living, in 
some respects, in almost primordial conditions. There 
is not only the political record to prove that. Two of 
the leading novelists, one the Austrian woman, Baroness 
Ebner-Eschenbach, the other the Hungarian, Maurus 
Jokai, in stories (like her ''Village Tales" and his 
''Magyar Nabob," for instance) that are admittedly true 
to the original, give us glimpses of the kind of "pater- 
nalism" still practised in both countries, a "paternal- 
ism" which was, in fact, undiluted absolutism in dealing 
with the lower classes. Even to-day the change from 
Western to Eastern manners is at once apparent to the 
traveller crossing the Austro-Hungarian border. Stock 
phrases everywhere used by the low-born to the high- 
born, such as "I kiss the hand, your Grace"; and even 
the kneeling posture and the touching of the hem of the 
lady's or gentleman's skirt with the lips — all such things, 
slight tokens as they may be, illustrate the yet unbridged 
abyss between the democratic West and the subservient 
East. 

Thus J.V came about that, in nearly every instance, prog- 
ress in these matters of political advance came not as 
the result of a fierce struggle for equality and greater 
human rights, as was the case farther West, but as the 
free gift from the rulers, from the privileged castes, as 
a sign of dynastic condescension. And these concessions 
were doled out late and sparingly. The watchword re- 
mained always : Authority. It is so to-day, despite all 
the changes wrought by the great war. As in previous 
great struggles the soldiers of Austria and of Hungary 
have proved excellent fighting machines. To some of 
the "tribes," as for example the Croatians and Dalma- 



CAUSES OF POLITICAL BACKWARDNESS 139 

tians (among whom illiteracy prevails to tlie extent of 
62-68 per cent.), fighting comes natural, fighting for any- 
thing and with anybody, and they allow themselves to 
be slaughtered by the thousands without once inquiring 
what they are really fighting for. The '*panje" (the 
masters) have ordered him to hold this trench, and hold 
it he does. Excellent "cannon fodder" this, as must be 
owned. The Czechs, most advanced of the Austrian 
Slavs, alone exercised considerable discrimination. When 
they were sent to face Slav brethren, such as Russians 
or Serbs, they preferred to fire in the air. In a word, 
then, the masses of the Austrian people, as well as a 
considerable portion of the Hungarian one, are still in a 
state of political immaturity. They do not reflect for 
themselves; they accept as true what they are told by 
their leaders or by the authorities set over them, and 
act accordingly. And, of course, this habit of unthink- 
ing obedience is especially strong in matters of creed and 
of politics, i.e., matters which do not touch their pockets 
directly. 

There is, therefore, no lack of political parties nor of 
party leaders. This is especially true of Austria. In 
every province, every little while, a new party, so-called, 
is born, and in the interested press the fact is proclaimed 
with blare of trumpet. In most instances, though, the 
new party is short-lived. It is just strong enough to 
elect an ambitious new ''leader" into the provincial or 
the national halls of legislation, and then it again crum- 
bles up and vanishes. In nearly every case these new 
parties and their mouthpieces manipulate more or less 
cleverly some catch phrases coined to describe the sup- 
posed specific needs of a province, a town, a district, a 
class. The foremost Austrian politicians are nearly 
without any exception men exercising their talents within 



140 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

a very circumscribed area. They are strictly provincial 
in their views and aims. Of national stature there are 
but a very few, and these are mostly members of the 
higher house, the House of Lords, where their field is 
large and more fruitful. Austrian politics, speaking 
broadly, are dominated by and are the outgrowth of pro- 
vincial desires and conditions, much more than that is 
the case in Hungary. There indeed a number of states- 
men in the full meaning of that word are at the head of 
affairs. And even the opposition leaders are, for the larg- 
er part, real statesmen, men with national programmes, 
definite ideas and convictions, men of large calibre. That 
is why whenever constructive statesmanship is urgently 
called for in the joint affairs of the Dual Monarchy, a 
Magyar had to be summoned in the majority of cases. 
The Austro-Hungarian statesmen of lasting fame, since 
the new structure came to exist in 1867, have all been 
Magyars — ^men like Andrassy, Kalnoky, Tisza, Deak. On 
the other hand, the Austrians who were put temporarily 
at the head of affairs during the past fifty years, were 
usually stop-gaps, men of single ideas, to fill vacancies 
for a short space merely. Count Taaffe, an intimate 
friend of the Emperor Francis Joseph since boyhood's 
days, was, perhaps, the only exception. But Taaffe 's 
task was to accomplish the impossible, namely, to con- 
duct state matters so as to reconcile both Slavs and Teu- 
tons of Austria. And so, of course, he failed in the 
end. Perhaps it may be said that in no other country is 
it so difficult for a statesman to achieve lasting results 
as in Austria-Hungary, even when leaving aside the fact 
of the people's political crudeness. For this conglom- 
erate people is thinking only in sections, working and 
achieving only in sections, and is, therefore, consciously 
or unconsciously, ever at cross-purposes, and is never 



CAUSES OF POLITICAL BACKWARDNESS 141 

backing up a statesman of original conceptions and 
methods with its united strength. This fact, too, has led 
in the end to the failure of nearly every one of Austria- 
Hungary's strong diplomats. Were it not for that, Hun- 
garians are by nature peculiarly gifted for dealing with 
large affairs of the state, and among the pliant and subtle 
Slav minds of Austria there is also excellent raw mate- 
rial for diplomacy. It is the unstable character of the 
people they represent that is to blame. 

Now the question may well be asked : Is there such a 
thing as political Liberalism in Austria-Hungary at all? 
As to Hungary it may be answered unequivocally in the 
affirmative. In fact, the idea of Liberalism has made 
there great strides in advance for some time, long before 
the outbreak of the war. But the forces working the 
other way have also all along been strong, marshalled as 
they were by such a consummate tactician as Count 
Stephen Tisza. Then the question of freer political in- 
stitutions is in Hungary intimately interwoven with 
great material interests. For with a broader franchise 
will inevitably come the end of aristocratic rule, and 
especially will the overweening influence of the Magnate 
families of historic note, such as the Esterhazys, the 
Palffys, the Szechenyis, the Pallavicinis, etc., be curtailed. 
These owners of estates, so large that they overtop in 
size some of the smaller German sovereign principalities, 
are naturally averse to parting with them, or fractions 
of them, save at advantageous terms. These Magnate 
dynasties, one might almost say, hold jointly about one- 
third the soil of all Hungary, and the very size of their 
possessions forbids any but the most careless extensive 
cultivation of it. Meanwhile, owing to inability to acquire 
sufficient arable land of their own, year after year many 
thousands of sturdy Hungarian peasants have emigrated 



142 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

to the United States or Canada. According to the latest 
census figures an army of over 100,000 of such land- 
hungry peasants, Magyars to boot, have deserted the Al- 
fold, the most favoured region of Hungary, for no other 
reason but the one stated ; while from Croatia the reports 
are that 270,000 of these Hungarian Slavs have gone to 
seek better fortune across the Atlantic during the five 
years 1905-10 alone. The granting of manhood suffrage 
(for the emigrants all belong to the disfranchised classes 
of the population) would doubtless soon put a stop to 
such an unnatural and grossly selfish land policy, espe- 
cially under the leadership of such able and unprejudiced 
parliamentarians as Andrassy, Apponyi, the Karolyis, 
etc., who strongly advocate the forcible dispossession of 
those favoured estate owners, against adequate compen- 
sation on the instalment plan. Tisza, the ablest and most 
unbending of the Hungarian reactionary forces, is now 
out of power, and the road to this, the greatest internal 
reform movement in Hungary for many years, seems 
open. It is certainly strange that this movement has 
been sponsored by Hungarian aristocrats who themselves 
belong to families tracing their patents of nobility back 
to the days of Arpad, more than a thousand years ago, 
for warlike deeds performed under the banner of the' 
king. But it must be recalled that a middle class, the 
class which in most other modern states is the chief 
advocate of political Liberalism, is really only in the 
making in Hungary. The Magyars are tillers of the 
soil, not dwellers in town and dealers in wares. That 
task has there fallen mostly to two classes of the popu- 
lation, viz., the Jews — of whom there are living about 
one million within the kingdom — and the Teutonic Hun- 
garians, altogether numbering close on three millions. 



CAUSES OF POLITICAL BACKWARDNESS 143 

The latter, however, that is, the bulk of them, are pros- 
pering on their own soil, in Transylvania, in the Banat, 
in the Zips districts, and but a part of them is either in 
commerce, mannfacture or engaged in the professions in 
the towns of interior Hungary. So that the Jews really 
form the greater part of Magyar town life. They also, 
besides those enlightened and progressive sections of the 
Magyar intelligent classes, government employes and 
nobility spoken of, make up a large percentage of ad- 
vanced or even radical Liberalism in Hungary. The 
Hungarian press is nearly altogether Jewish. 

The same fact is true of Austria. In Vienna, for in- 
stance, the Jewish element is by far the most conspicuous. 
It dominates in the press, finance, commerce and in- 
dustry. In fact, progress in every shape throughout 
Austria is a synonym for Judaism. Politically, it is 
true, this remark must be reduced to its proper limits. 
For there is not only a large and rapidly growing Social- 
ist element in existence, but there are also several Teu- 
ton-Austrian parties and several Czech ones which form 
together a considerable portion of the electorate of the 
country and which undoubtedly must be classed as Liber- 
als. The Christian Socialists, on the other hand, are 
professedly anti-Semites and so are subdivisions of the 
Socialists, as in Bohemia and in Slovene districts. The 
latter fact is largely explained by the successful tactics 
of Jewish speculators in land, depriving thereby strata 
of the peasant population of their holdings and inducing 
them to emigrate. 

But one fact must never be lost sight of : the race 
question here, as in everything else, injects itself into 
political life. It overtops every other. It contrives to 
prevent political Liberalism from ever achieving a united 



144 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

front. It relegates Liberalism to a secondary place. For 
Liberals in Austria there are no common aims, no com- 
mon focus, no common propaganda, and there cannot be 
so • long as existing conditions continue. It brings it 
about that the whole Liberal movement in Austria is but 
sporadic, never of any long duration, never cementing 
parties or fractions, provincially or racially divided, into 
a unit, not even temporarily. I mentioned briefly that in 
this respect, as in others, Hungary is more fortunate. 
The race question plays there, too, a big part ; but it does 
not overshadow all other questions. Besides, although 
the Magyars have been ruthlessly Magyarising the non- 
Magyar races dwelling side by side with them, there is 
not the same virulent race hatred displayed as in Aus- 
tria, owing in part to a singular gift of assimilation 
possessed by the dominant element. In Austria unfor- 
tunately the race strife has for several generations as- 
sumed forms and attained a degree of bitterness um 
paralleled, I believe, anywhere in history. 

However, there is one more factor militating against 
the spread of Liberalism. The precarious political situ- 
ation of the Dual Monarchy during the twenty years past 
has tended more and more to cloud that issue. Conscious 
of her increasing delicate situation internally, conscious 
also of the waning loyalty of large sections of her popu- 
lation, and at the same time facing every year anew the 
dimly threatening danger of a coming war — a veritable 
struggle for existence — the movement for enhanced Lib- 
eralism has been relegated to the background. And not 
only that, the low state of public education in the mon- 
archy as a whole, but more particularly in certain por- 
tions of Austria, has also had much to do with the rela- 
tively small interest the question of attaining freer in- 
stitutions has elicited. Illiteracy so widespread as it is 



CAUSES OF POLITICAL BACKWARDNESS 145 

shown by the census of 1910 to exist in Austria — nearly 
ten millions of analphabets out of a total of twenty-six 
millions — is surely not contributory to Liberalism in 
politics. 



CHAPTER X 

THE HABSBUEGS AND THEIR FAMILY POLICY 

It may be described in one short phrase: personal aggrandisement — 
Viewed from that angle it has been consistent through the cen- 
turies — Their "lands" and their "peoples" regarded by them as 
personal possessions — Never an honest attempt to interpret the long- 
ings and racial aspirations of their conglomerate subjects — Not 
even unselfishly devoted to the Austrians of German stock — ^Lean- 
ing on those elements vphich for the time were most powerful — The 
question of race and the Habsburg dynasty — Not German at all — 
The influence of the Jesuits lasted for over two hundred years — 
The Habsburg court since 1564 a refuge for titled adventurers from 
all over Europe — Examples and names — The new landholding 
aristocracy in Austria — The prestige acquired by the Habsburgs 
through the Imperial crown of the Holy Roman Empire solely used 
to further Habsburg dynastic interests — During the last fifty years 
the Habsburg family policy has been greatly hampered by Hun- 
gary and by the race problem — But it is still the only guiding star 
for the ruler. 

Not so very remote are the times when all the crowned 
heads of Europe, each in his own way and working with 
the means ready to his hand, looked at the lands and 
nations entrusted to their care as so much private prop- 
erty. Those were the days when the principle of divine 
rulership still found common acceptance; when such 
heresies as ''consent of the governed," ''no taxation 
without representation," etc., were not even dreamt of; 
when, as jolly old Pepys narrates in his diary, even free 
Britons went down on their knees drinking the health of 

146 



HABSBUEGS AND THEIR FAMILY POLICY 147 

their merry sovereign. ^'Kneeling, let's kneel, damn 
yon," he exhorts his friend in the street. Mankind has 
passed through the whole gamut of ''loyalty" in its vari- 
ous interpretations. There were days (and in Japan 
they lie but a short while back, for instance) when men 
were so "loyal" that their rulers, like the gods them- 
selves, must remain invisible and when to gaze at them 
meant to die the death of a malefactor. There were days 
when the "king could do no wrong" ; when the king could 
not only say: ''L'etat c'est moi," but actually mean it, 
and meaning it could regulate all his doings accordingly, 
to the great edification of his subjects ; when the policy 
of a nation was, in essence, nothing but the personal 
policy of its king. That policy then might, perhaps, re- 
dound for a certain period to the advantage, material 
and otherwise, of the people he ruled, or it might not. 
In any case, it was a policy dictated chiefly or entirely by 
the wishes and impulses, by the ambitions and idiosyn- 
crasies of one person, the monarch. Necessarily such a 
policy was unstable, because it changed with the accession 
of a new ruler who often might hold opposite views of 
what was best for him. There are some notable excep- 
tions to this recorded in history, but they are, after all, 
exceptions, and do not vitiate the theory as a whole. 
There were also in those earlier days some rulers, a 
very few, who did not identify their nation's interests 
with their own, but rather their own interests with theirs. 
These, too, were rare. Of the nations that in modern 
times have achieved greatness, measurable prosperity 
and success it may be said that their guiding spirits 
more frequently made the happiness of the governed 
tally with their own than was the case in other countries. 
The human species has gone through all these prelimi- 
nary stages of political development semi-consciously. 



148 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

Humiliating to our pride of to-day as it may seem, these 
former phases of evolution were probably necessary to 
bring it at last home to man that civic and national free- 
dom presupposes a rather high degree of intelligence and 
character. Conversely Louis XI of France probably did 
not knowingly pursue a policy favourable to the develop- 
ment of an advancing middle class when he persistently 
curtailed the feudal powers and privileges of the nobles ; 
neither did Richelieu or Mazarin — at least we have no 
utterance of theirs to tell us so. 

But while in England and France and even in certain 
states of Germany there were occasional monarchs whose 
aims served the best interests of those countries, in that 
agglutination of lands under the sceptre of the Habs- 
burgs there was literally not one of that description, not 
one during all the centuries elapsed since Rudolph of 
Habsburg first laid the foundation to their dynastic 
power. As one quickly passes in review the main his- 
torical events in which the Habsburgs played a part since 
1273, in vain you will look for one single bit of evidence 
that their polity has been other than one dictated by 
family reasons — to be more precise, than that of per- 
sonal aggrandisement. There have been learned dis- 
cussions on this point, and it must be owned that on the 
face of it the doings of this or that particular Habsburg 
are hard to interpret on reasonable grounds (as when 
they systematically devastated Bohemia, their most 
valuable ^^crownland") but doubt vanishes and every- 
thing becomes clear when one remembers that the sole 
line of conduct consistently followed through all their 
tortuous paths was and is inspired by family tradition; 
that it always strove for more personal power, for larger 
possessions and wider influence, for the further exten- 
sion of their conglomerate territories. 



HABSBUEGS AND THEIR FAMILY POLICY 149 

That has been the single Habsburg policy for 650 years. 
To lord it over more and more lands, no matter how 
foreign in race and no matter how such addition might 
be brought about — that has been their one object. And 
through it all, not only in remoter days when similar 
views obtained everywhere else, but down to this very 
hour, the Habsburgs have regarded the polyglot races 
under their sway as their personal possessions, as human 
chattels to do with as they liked. Even when this present 
war broke out, how did aged Francis Joseph address 
them in his proclamations! He spoke to them as ''My 
Peoples" (Meine Volker) ; he spoke of the millions fight- 
ing for the preservation of his throne as ''My Army"; 
of the allied nations as "My Allies." Everywhere else 
concessions had to be made to a spirit of independence ; 
not so in Austria. There the policy pursued by the 
crown remained that of the family tradition, that of per- 
sonal aggrandisement. With justice it is laid to the 
charge of the Habsburgs that there never was any at- 
tempt made by them to bring their subjects closer to 
them spiritually ; to make acquaintance with their souls, 
with their racial aspirations, with their secret longings 
and dreams. The welfare of not one of the eight races 
living in the shadow of their throne was ever made their 
care. And even the oft-mooted question whether the 
Habsburgs are of G-erman stock, whether they sympa- 
thise in their hearts with German ideals, whether, in 
short, they may be classed as Teutons, even that question 
must be answered with a most emphatic negative. The 
Habsburgs (even more than the other Austrians origi- 
nally of Germanic lineage) have long ago ceased to feel 
themselves as Germans. Emperor Maximilian, the 
grandfather of Charles V, was the last one of the Habs- 
burgs that still lived and thought as a German, and that 



150 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

was four hundred years ago. Since then the Habsburgs 
— even in the days of Maximilian a mixed product as to 
descent — have forfeited every right to be classified raci- 
ally with any particular stock. The blood of Burgundy, 
of Flanders, of Spain, of Italy, of France, of Bohemia, 
of Hungary flows and mingles in their veins, and save 
the thick and pendulous underlip — the far-famed Habs- 
burg lip — which is the one physical trait marking them 
through the centuries, there are no special racial char- 
acteristics in body or face telling them apart. They 
themselves are not only as polyglot as the ^'peoples" they 
rule over, but far more ''compound" in their lineage. 
Neither are the Habsburgs intellectually in sympathy 
with the German nation of to-day. Not even Maria 
Theresa, not even her talented son, the semi-Frenchman 
Joseph II, showed any interest in the golden age of 
German music (Beethoven, Schubert, Haydn, Mozart, 
etc.) or German poetry (Schiller, Goethe, Lessing, etc.). 
And the late Emperor Francis Joseph, although his 
whole life long fond of Vienna and Vienna ways, never 
cared a rap for the German stage or German science, his 
preference being for the ballet and for the florid style of 
opera. 

For more than two hundred years — i.e., from 1564- 
1772 — the Jesuits dominated the court of the Habsburgs, 
making themselves absolute keepers of the Habsburg 
conscience and smothering every attempt made to smug- 
gle in some of the religious Liberalism from France or 
Germany. They, too, were the intellectual authors of the 
virulent ''Counter-Eeformation" that set in throughout 
Austria and that finally led to the horrible Thirty Year's 
War (1618-48), leaving not only Germany completely ex* 
hausted, beggared and depopulated, but Austria and 
Hungary as well, albeit not to the same extent. And 



HABSBUEGS AND THEIR FAMILY POLICY 151 

when, under the reign of that strange non-Habsburgian 
Habsbnrg, Joseph II, the Jesuit rule was temporarily 
abolished, when even Portugal and France had put an 
end to Jesuit intrigues within their domains, on the 
death of that enlightened Joseph II the order was 
once more restored to predominating influence under 
Metternich's baleful regime. Even later, Austria, by the 
Concordat concluded with the Vatican, once more 
shackled education and free intellectual growth. 

And to their court in Vienna, since the reign of Em- 
peror Rudolph, of Ferdinand and his successors during 
the whole of the 17th century, the Habsburgs, mongrels 
in blood and bigots in religion, invited all the titled ad- 
venturers of Europe. And they came. They came from 
France, from Italy, from Spain, from the Netherlands, 
from Ireland and Scotland and England; poor Catholic 
gentlemen mostly, driven out by persecutors themselves, 
or else only possessing a sharp sword to be sold to the 
highest bidder. And thus you find them, all through the 
thirty years of fighting, always under the Habsburg 
banner, the Butlers and O'DonneUs; the MacMahons and 
'Byrnes, the DeLaceys (raised to the rank of counts) 
and Mercys and Montmorencys, the Clam Gallas and 
Clarys, — the whole litany of them from every quarter of 
the compass. Many of these were rewarded with large 
estates in Bohemia or Moravia or other places where the 
former noble owners, as rebels, had graced the gallows, 
and they started a new nobility there, one still in posses- 
sion to-day. Later, too, when Prince Eugexie of Savoy 
came out of France to fight for Austria, side by side with 
Marlborough, against the man he hated most, Louis XIV, 
and still later, when Laudon, the Englishman, became the 
best sword Maria Theresa could send against her arch- 
enemy, Frederick of Prussia — during all these troublous 



152 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

days when Austria's black eagle on a golden field was 
flying everywhere — from Belgrade and the Lower Danube 
to the dykes of Holland, adventurers of empty purse and 
high-sounding names flocked to Vienna to make their 
fortunes. And all the time, too, Vienna became a non- 
German town; its court was completely denationalised; 
in every sense this court drew its inspiration from the 
Catholic South (Italy and Spain notably) rather than 
from Protestant Germany, Holland or England. 

Any one who will take the trouble to-day to study such 
official Austrian sources as, for instance, the Court Cal- 
endar, Army Register, the Dictionary of Notabilities, 
etc., may easily convince himself that as far at least as 
the nobility and the landholding classes of Austria are 
concerned, these are overwhelmingly non-Teutonic in 
descent. They are also non-Slavic. They are the scions 
of that motley crowd of which we spoke above. Indeed 
it may be said, without stating the case too crudely, that 
for centuries the eminent names in the history of Austria 
have been non-Austrian. Not to go back any farther 
than 1700, one finds such ''Austrian" worthies as Prince 
Eugene of Savoy, the equally great Italian, General 
Montecucoli, the doughty Irishman DeLacy, the Irish- 
man Taaffe, the Frenchmen or Belgians d'Argenteau, de 
Bucquoi, de Hoyos, the Irishman Plunkett; the Slav 
Kaunitz, the Saxon Beust, the Rhinelander Metternich, 
etc. And when, on the other hand, one investigates the 
list of landholders in Bohemia, it is found that the chief 
names are, it is true, German, like the Princes Schwarz- 
enberg, the Thuns, Hohenbergs, Harrachs, Schonborns, 
Lichtensteins, Waldsteins, owning between them some 
8^ per cent, of the total area of that country, but that 
these names are titles conferred by Habsburg rulers on 
the aforesaid foreigners that had come to grace their 



HABSBUEGS AND THEIR FAMILY POLICY 153 

court, or Italian like Pallayicini, Piccolomini, but OzecL. 
in hardly a single instance. What a contrast is afforded 
in this respect by Hungary ! There the aristocracy (to- 
gether with the Church and with some municipalities) 
holds enormous estates, and they bear nearly all names 
famous in Hungarian history, such as the Esterhazys, 
Karolyis, Szechenyis, Palffys, Batthyanys, Erdelys, 
Tokolys, Serenyis, Festetics; Wenckheims. Altogether 
they occupy jointly no less than 30 per cent, of the 
entire land, and two of their estates measure each more 
than half a million of acres, with another score measuring 
each between 150,000 and 200,000 acres. But then Hun- 
gary never had any ''Counter- Reformation," such as Bo- 
hemia had. 

The creation of a new non-Slavic and non-Teutonic 
nobility in Austria explains, besides, several phenomena. 
This, for example, that again in striking contrast with 
Hungary, this nobility having no racial ties with the soil 
nor with the bone and sinew of the people inhabiting it, 
never led the van in any movements aiming at obtaining 
desired concessions from the crown, but that they on the 
contrary were bound hand and foot to the latter. Again, 
it explains how it comes that this new aristocracy, 
wealthy and cultured (though the word must be under- 
stood in rather a narrow sense) though it be, is not 
patriotic, but rather cosmopolitan in sentiment and sym- 
pathies. Also in a measure, that they are very clannish 
and exclusive. In other countries derivation of the no- 
bility proceeded along different lines ; their historic role, 
at certain phases of development (such as, in England, 
in the early Middle Ages and again in later days, in Hun- 
gary throughout her whole history, in France in the days 
of the Ligue, of the Fronde and even later, in Italy during 
the period of the Renaissance and again during the Ris- 



154 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

orgamento of Cavour and Garibaldi, in Germany in the 
days of Goethe and Schiller), went far to atone for other 
shortcomings. But in Austria there are no such compen- 
sating features of the case, for even in the arts, in music, 
etc., the part they played as patrons was a sorry one. 
They allowed the great geniuses of the country almost to 
starve, while they wasted their substance on Italian 
primedonne or French ballerinas. 

And as one scans in vain the historical horizon of 
Austria to discover extenuating circumstances for this 
Habsburg '4and hunger," it must not be overlooked that 
the centuries-long tenure of the crown of the Holy Roman 
Empire (the title from 1500 on had become an empty 
one, as no other Habsburg, after Charles V, had either 
sought or obtained coronation in Rome) by the Habs- 
burgs was not productive of any tangible benefits to the 
German nation. The imperial crown, in fact, deterior- 
ated into a nonentity, into a shadow without substance. 
And it deteriorated into that mainly because the Habs- 
burgs, ever much more eager to gather to themselves an 
ever increasing ^'Hausmacht/' so-called, that is, terri- 
tories of their own, without troubling their heads much 
about the internal concerns of Germany proper, and 
misusing their own ^^Hauswiacht" indeed, as in the case 
of the rise of Protestanism in Luther's time and again 
during the whole of the Thirty Years' War, to coerce 
those German princes not in rehgious consonance with 
them, had in reality ceased to be, as I pointed out before, 
Germans in sentiment or aim. They cleverly enough 
plied the prestige which the imperial crown ensured 
them, in attaining their own dynastic ends, but were 
wholly indifferent to the ultimate fate of Germany while 
posing as its protectors and spokesmen. 

Now during the last fifty years this Habsburg dynastic 



HABSBUEGS AND THEIR FAMILY POLICY 155 

policy has been enormously hampered by the fact that 
Hungary by the so-called Ausgleich of 1867 has acquired 
substantial autonomy. It is this fact, the fact that side 
by side with Austria, forming part of the Gesammt-Mon- 
archie {i.e., the monarchy as a whole) there was a coun- 
try enjoying a larger measure of independence and po- 
litical prosperity, that has hastened the process of racial 
strife in Austria herself, and has rendered it much more 
acute than it would probably have been otherwise. Of 
these things I speak more fully elsewhere. 

Suffice it to say here that notwithstanding this latest 
phase of the whole matter, the Habsburg family policy 
has still remained the old one. It still is the guiding star 
of Habsburg existence. So far as visible signs go, there 
has been no modification of it, no conversion to more 
modem and enlightened doctrines. As to Hungary, the 
constitution and the terms of the Ausgleich bind the king 
down to specified duties and prerogatives, and all politi- 
cal parties in Hungary watch jealously that these be not 
exceeded by a hair's breadth. But as to Austria the case 
is different. The Habsburgs there have not given up 
their ancient pretension of ruling and governing both. 
By small compromises to right and left, by playing out 
one party and one province against the other, the Habs- 
burgs have so far contrived to postpone the day when 
they must either quit or else condone for their past by 
embracing the faith and the methods of modern times. 
For the old, old game of divide et iwipera, the old heathen 
statecraft of the Romans, will not serve them any longer. 



CHAPTEE XI 

THE IMPEEIAL COURT 

Above all it requires modernising principles — Is the most retrograde 
and exclusive court in the world — ^Mediaeval views and customs still 
prevailing — Solemn obsequies at the late Emperor's death an illus- 
tration — The Habsburgs in their various branches — The "Thou" in 
court and aristocratic circles — Some improvements by the present 
imperial couple: Carl and Zita — Maria Josef a, the Emperor's 
mother — A few notes — The late Archduke Otto — Emperor's brother 
is a lawyer — How the people regard the whole court — Some iinap- 
preeiated facts about Francis Joseph — His mother, Archduchess 
Sophia — Simplicity and stubbornness — Carl Ludwig— The Habs- 
burg fund — The Este fund — The Toscana branch — ^Leopold Salva- 
tor — One of the few useful members of the house — His prayer at 
the outbreak of the war — Escapades and scandals — Carl Stephan, 
the "Pole," and Joseph, the "Magyar" — Rainier and Ernst — His 
daughters and son, and their lawsuit — Morganatic marriages — 
Archduke Frederick and family — The late Archduke Francis Ferdi- 
nand. 

One of tlie things that have tended to create the im- 
pression throughout the world that Austria-Hungary is 
a very backward country, is its imperial and royal court. 
And indeed it must be said that this impression is not far 
wrong. For there are a number of features about this 
particular court which strangely clash with the demo- 
cratic sentiments obtaining to-day in other countries. 
The reputation acquired by the Vienna court of being the 
most retrograde, the most intensely mediaeval in its 
views, its ironclad system of ceremonies, and its general 

156 



THE IMPEEIAL COUET 157 

bearing towards the other dwellers in this mnndane 
sphere, is not undeserved. The breath of real life has not 
yet found any cranny or chink by which to penetrate this 
hoary and somewhat mouldering structure. The air with- 
in is unwholesome and heavy-laden with the incense of 
flattery. So far as history shows, there has been but one 
solitary monarch of the Habsburg line that dared to be 
natural and progressive, and of that one, Emperor 
Joseph II, the courtiers in the Hofburg, in Schonbrunn 
and Laxenburg tell one another even to-day awesome 
stories with bated breath, although a century and a half 
has elapsed since then. Why, this Joseph II (a brother 
of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette of France) had even 
the hardihood to throw open the Prater, the imperial 
hunting grounds near Vienna, to the common, ordinary 
people, and when his noble courtiers rebelled thereat, 
murmuring that henceforth they should not know where 
to go to be ''among themselves," he told them curtly 
that if that were a guiding principle in life where should 
he himself turn to be among his equals 1 He should have 
to spend his days among his ancestors in the Capuchin 
mausoleum. And that settled it. The Prater has been 
a popular place of amusement and recreation ever since, 
and Joseph II caused the inscription to be placed at its 
main entrance: "To my Fellow-Men from their True 
Servant." But, as I said, the memory of this open- 
minded ruler is hated and despised by all those men and 
women in Austria loving in their hearts the cmcien 
regime, with its disdain of the "rabble" — and the num- 
ber of these is still surprisingly large in the empire. 
And Joseph II was the only one of his type in the annals 
of Austria. 

It is the spirit of the darkest Middle Ages that is still 
reigning omnipotent at the Vienna court. One cannot 



158 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

speak of a Budapest court, for none has been held there 
for many years. The late Emperor Francis Joseph, al- 
though he underwent the ceremony of coronation as 
"Apostolic" King of Hungary (a title conferred by the 
Pope on King Stephen in the year 1,000 A.D. for his 
services in behalf of the general acceptance of Christian- 
ity among the Magyars), and although he shrewdly dick- 
ered and bargained with the Hungarian nation in politi- 
cal and economic matters, yet never really forgave them 
their rebellion of 1848-49 and never felt comfortable in 
their midst. It has been a much-ventilated grievance of 
the Hungarians that their King would not reside among 
them, only spending at long intervals a few short weeks 
at most on special visits to Budapest or to his royal 
country seat at Godollo. The old emperor on his part, 
during the last score of his many years preferred Schon- 
brunn (first built by Maria Theresa in the middle of the 
18th century), a smaller and more unpretentious chateau 
in the outskirts of Vienna. Besides, medical advice had 
warned him to eschew Vienna with its granite pavements. 
It lies embedded in green. The whole surroundings were 
more to his liking than the immense pile of the ancient 
Hofburg in the heart of old Vienna. True, the immense 
park itself is laid out in the style of the stately but stiff 
French art of Le Notre and Versailles, but the emperor's 
own intimate section of it, to which every morning he 
used to descend a short flight leading directly from his 
suite and his study to his favourite rose garden, was more 
in the English taste. It is separated from the huge park 
with its rows of enormous chestnuts and its carefully 
trimmed hedges of box, by tall wire fencing. Through 
this wire fencing, however, any one could have seen the 
old gentleman a stone's throw off, walking slowly among 
his roses, bending frequently and inhaling the delicious 



THE IMPERIAL COURT 159 

fragrance of a Marechal Mel or a La France that had 
opened overniglit. 

Now the present young emperor has ascended the 
somewhat shaky throne of the Habshurgs, the Hofburg, 
as the real seat of the monarch, has been restored to its 
former importance. A new wing, built in Renaissance 
style and actually fitted up with such new-fangled things 
as sanitary plumbing and comfortable bathtubs, has been 
added of late, and there the young Emperor Carl dwells 
with his family when the season does not permit resi- 
dence in Laxenburg. This Laxenburg is located yet an- 
other short distance beyond Schonbrunn, up on a height, 
and is likewise in the midst of tall trees and verdant 
bushes, and meadows, an ideal summer resort. But wher- 
ever he be and Zita, his spouse, the elaborate etiquette 
of the Habsburg court, first adopted and copied from the 
Spanish of the Escorial, by the Emperor Charles VI, 
follows them. It may be recalled that this same sedate 
and sombre Spanish etiquette, prescribing a certain atti- 
tude of body and mind at nearly every minute of the day 
or night, proved too much for the young English wife of 
the present King Alfonso at Madrid, and that she pre- 
vailed upon her doting lord to modify it somewhat. It 
seems that the young Emperor Carl may make a similar 
attempt before long. There is certainly room for some 
such reform, for the Habsburg court etiquette is by all 
odds the most stifling in existence. A striking illustra- 
tion of this was afforded, first, at the death by assassi- 
nation of the heir to the throne, Francis Ferdinand, and 
of his consort, in the summer of 1914. The grave and 
awful problem had to be solved by the imperial master 
of ceremonies, Prince Montenuovo, how to conduct the 
funeral of the husband and, next, of the wife. She, it 
must be considered, was only his ''morganatic" wife. 



160 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

Her rank was not equal to his. And before lie was per- 
mitted to wed her, who had been a mere Countess Chotek, 
he had been compelled to make oath of resignation that 
any issue of the marriage would not be entitled, nor 
proposed by him for succession, to the throne. All the 
rusty wiseacres of the imperial court were in a great 
state of excitement to solve the knotty question, which 
they finally did by declaring that while the remains of 
Francis Ferdinand doubtless were worthy to receive the 
state burial due a leading member of the dynastic line, 
and while every honour and glittering pageantry of such 
a ceremony should be exhibited the woman, the wife of 
his bosom and mother of his children, could by no means 
share in them. Hers should be a simple private funeral. 
And so it was done ; the whole elaborate ceremony, last- 
ing for several days, was gone through with. But it 
seemed as though nature herself wanted to protest 
against this discriminating tomfoolery; for as the night 
came at last when the bodies of these two were — accord- 
ing to the stringent injunction of the formal will and 
testament of Francis Ferdinand — to be laid side by side 
in the mausoleum specially built at his chateau of Arts- 
tetten on the Danube, a fearful storm, accompanied by 
torrential rain and terrific thunder and lightning, broke 
and wholly destroyed all the costly mummery of death — 
velvet and silver trimmed catafalque, shrouds and mourn- 
ing housings of the horses, even the expensive trappings 
of the guards in mediaeval gear and costume. 

And when the aged monarch himself died last winter, 
at the ripe old age of 86, a similar but even far more 
extensive programme of solemn hocuspocus was gone 
through with — everything according to paragraph so 
and so, section eomething or other, of the statutes for 
such cases made and provided. It is like the laws of 



THE IMPERIAL COURT 161 

the Medes and the Persians, this unchangeable code of 
traditional lore, and the people of the monarchy are so 
used to it that they would feel deeply aggrieved if every 
tittle and letter of these hoary traditions were not car- 
ried out to the last point. Not but what some of those 
things are not impressive and grand, even replete with 
meaning of a sort. Thus, before the embalmed body of 
Francis Joseph, after undergoing for a week everything 
else in the way of showy vigils and lying in state, could 
finally enter its last resting place, the crypt of the Habs- 
burgs in the Capuchin Church at Vienna, a symbolical 
procedure reminding one strongly of a similar one of 
the ancient Egyptians, had to be performed. The bier 
with the long train of titled and highborn pall bearers 
having been borne to the closed gate of the crypt, three 
knocks were heard against the iron. A knight in full 
and resplendent armour demands entrance. A tiny win- 
dow opens in the gate, and a monk ii^ cowl is seen there. 
* ' Who knocks T ' he says in a low voice. ' ' The body of his 
Serene Majesty, the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria 
and King of Hungary, demands admittance for sepul- 
ture," is the reply. "We know of no such person here," 
says the sad-eyed monk. "Again I say: Who knocks?" 
And then, with a deep obeisance, the shining knight makes 
answer in humble tone : "A poor brother, a fellow-being, 
seeks entrance for eternal rest." 

"Enter," then responds the monk, and throws wide 
the gate. 

Again, it is true that the festivities at the Court of 
Vienna are not only splendid in their externals but have 
a peculiar charm of their own. Once admitted within 
the sacred circle, the hospitality shown is gracious and 
without a tinge of ostentatiousness. Everybody there 
addresses the other, save alone the members of the im- 



162 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY; POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

perial house, by the intimate German ^'du,-' the ^Hhoii" 
of earlier English, a sign that all barriers of exclusive- 
ness have now fallen for the lucky individual. Indeed, 
the "du'^ is reckoned as an honouring token of equality, 
of good-will, not only among the Austrian and Hungarian 
aristocracy, but also with the officers in the army, no 
matter how humble their original status and family con- 
nection. But it has truthfully been said that there is 
nothing to exceed the exclusiveness of the Austrian court 
and nobility. It is next to impossible for a person, no 
matter how wealthy and famous, to find admission save 
on the single ground of birth. Always excepting, of 
course, the officers of the army. Their patent as an 
officer is also the Open, sesame! to every gathering, no 
matter how high the rank. 

To be, therefore, '4ioffahig" {i.e., admitted to court) 
is the highest distinction that can be conferred on any one 
in Austria. Those forming the upper crust strive eagerly 
for it if there appears to be any chance at all. But the 
Emperor himself has, as a rule, little to say about it, for 
this thing is, like everything else connected with court 
life, reduced to rigid rules that none may transgress with 
impunity. Prince Montenuovo (a direct descendant, by 
the way, of Marie Louise, Napoleon's wife, from her sec- 
ond union with Count Neipperg) for many years was the 
severe and exacting arbiter in these matters in his role 
of chief master of ceremonies, together with his collabor- 
ator, the chief chamberlain of the emperor. This man 
Montenuovo was perfectly incorruptible. He is known 
to have rejected fabulous sums with which certain men 
(among them a well-known Croesus of the bourse, since 
created a baron) sought to bribe him. He is known to 
have argued successfully even with his master, the em- 
peror, when a candidate (or his wife) did not meet his 



THE IMPERIAL COURT 163 

own high requirements. "Well, things are hound to alter 
in this regard under the milder sway of the present young 
empress, Zita of Parma, a charming young lady of Italian 
stock, very good-hearted and with her husband far more 
democratic than any previous wearer of the ancient 
crown. 

The House of Habsburg counts at this writing all told 
some 170 members — men, women and children. After the 
extinction of the original main, male stock, in 1739, the 
marriage of the daughter of Emperor Charles VI, Maria 
Theresa, with Francis of Lorraine brought the still reign- 
ing branch of the dynasty, the Habsburg-Lorrainers, to 
power. Beside them there are several collateral 
branches, the Toscana line, the Este line (partly of Ital- 
ian derivation) the Neapolitan and the Parma line. Of 
all these it is doubtless the Toscana line (comprising 
about thirty members in all) which displays the greatest 
ability, both physical and mental. One of the daughters 
of the late emperor became the wife of one of these Tos- 
cana agnates. His name is Francis Salvator, and his 
wife, the Archduchess Marie Valerie, while always her fa- 
ther's favourite child, shows little of the personal charm 
of her mother, the lamented Elisabeth who fell a victim 
to an Italian anarchist 's dagger. Francis Salvator him- 
self has exerted himself greatly throughout the war as 
head of the Austrian Red Cross society. He has not 
alone sacrificed in that pursuit his own and his wife's 
large revenues, but it has been due to his personal ap- 
peals and strenuous efforts mainly that the required 
enormous funds have been raised. Again and again he 
has gone to the front, organising and looking after 
things; he has accompanied, more than once, trainloads 
of sick or wounded soldiers ; he has been chiefly instru- 
mental in starting and equipping sanitary stations some 



164 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

distance beliind the fronts, one at the Hungarian border 
in the Carpathians, and two each at the Galician and 
Italian front. These stations, now running some thirty 
months, have done most in preventing the spread of in- 
fectious diseases and war epidemics like spotted typhoid, 
cholera and bubonic pest, and of smallpox in the hinter- 
land. 

The present emperor and king is a frank, wholesouled, 
modest and personally very charming young man whom 
(quite some time before his accession) it was my good 
fortune to meet several times. As yet he is inexperi- 
enced and life may perhaps so deal with him as to make 
something quite different out of him than he is now. 
Crowned heads are apt to turn out in the end other than 
even wise men expected. History is full of such cases, 
from the days of Alexander the Great and Nero to times 
much more recent. But one thing, it is pretty safe to 
say, time will not make of Carl, emperor and king. He 
is not made of that stern stuff out of which great rulers 
are carved. I saw him, not a great while ago, trundle 
a baby carriage on the gravel paths of the Hofburg 
castle park, his wife walking by his side. He wore a 
typically Austrian smile of placid good-nature, a regular 
paterfamilias smile. It was during the days when his 
aged granduncle, Francis Joseph, was still bearing the 
burden of the crown. The young heir to it was home from 
the front on a short leave, mainly to see what his young- 
est-born, that had woke to the light of this queer world 
during his father's absence, was like — and outside the 
iron railing gay Vienna was passing back and forth on 
the Ringstrasse, many stopping for a moment or two 
to enjoy this idyllic picture of young wedded bliss. Thor- 
oughly unaffected and urbane the then Archduke Carl 
looked. From all accounts that is part of his nature. 



THE IMPEEIAL COUET 165 

At the Italian front, a year ago, the soldiers all adored 
him. He would stop and light his own cigarette on that 
of a common fighting man. No pretence of superiority ; 
quite simple and democratic. He would chat with any of 
the men, ask them the news from home, about how they 
fared, made them tell their troubles, their joys, their 
private affairs. To each he spoke in his native tongue, 
whether Slav or German or Magyar. A thoroughly 
amiable character. He would share the meal of any 
small group in the trenches, would snitf the succulent 
gulyas approvingly, and display a healthy appetite in 
eating it. 

In all this he has more from his father than his mother. 
His father, Archduke Otto, though he led a rather repre- 
hensible life, was extremely popular. He was strikingly 
handsome — a tall, powerfully built man, swarthy, with 
hair and beard of raven black. They had made him 
marry the Princess Maria Josefa, sister to the present 
King of Saxony whose marital troubles for years af- 
forded much gossip. Maria Josefa did not know how to 
manage her wild husband. He never cared for her and 
was continually indulging in escapades. Many of these 
you can still hear about in Vienna. One which led to his 
being in disgrace with his uncle, as head of the House 
of Habsburg, for quite a while, was indeed an almost 
unpardonable freak of reckness deviltry. Coming home, 
with a cavalcade of roystering boon companions, from 
a suburban resort where they all had dined not wisely 
but too well, they met a citizen funeral cortege, and the 
young Archduke, fired with a noble postprandial ambi- 
tion, instantly wagered that his horse, the Hungarian 
blooded mare Euryanthe, could ''take" the cofiin. Before 
any one could stop him, hep-hep-halloo, he and the horse 
went over — to the intense scandal of the old priest head- 



166 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

ing the mourners. The priest, too, that very day saw to 
it that the old emperor was informed of the matter, and 
a rather violent scene is said to have ensued between 
uncle and nephew. Things went on from had to worse 
with Otto. Exiled for a time. Otto returned from a 
trip to foreign parts with the seeds of a lingering and 
painful, as well as in the end fatal disease in his blood. 
During its last stages the quondam good-looking sprig 
of effete royalty had to wear a mask in front of his face 
to hide the ravages of the frightful disorder from the 
public, his nose being completely gone. At a compara- 
tively early age, less than 44, he succumbed to the ail- 
ment, leaving two young sons, of whom the present mon- 
arch is the elder, and a widow who from the disillusion- 
ment of life had sought consolation in a rigid observance 
of religious rites. A devout Catholic, a fond mother, 
an angel of charity that brought succour wherever cases 
came to her ken, the Archduchess Maria Josefa, whose 
tall and somewhat obese figure lacks distinction, with a 
rather austere demeanour, has never been liked by the 
Austrians, the ways of the latter differing so much from 
hers, while, as I said, they condoned willingly all the 
faults of her wayward husband, merely because his out- 
ward bearing was debonair and because his failings were 
typically Austrian. However, she educated her two sons 
as well as she could. At that time nobody foresaw, of 
course, that Carl was ever to ascend the throne, his 
uncle, Francis Ferdinand, being in the prime and vigour 
of manhood. The younger brother of the present em- 
peror, Maximilian (Max for short), chose the study of 
law for a favourite pursuit, a unique case in the Habs- 
burg family chronicles. He is now a full-fledged doctor 
of laws, having also passed the ** state examination" with 



THE IMPEEIAL COURT 167 

distinction, althougli, of course, he is not actually prac- 
tising Ms profession. 

If I were so inclined I could easily fill a whole book 
with scandal of the court of Vienna and of the House of 
Habsburg. Surely there is enough of the kind even 
if one confined himself to none but authentic stories. 
But that is not my purpose, and enough, even more than 
enough, has already been printed of such matters. I 
cited the aforegoing few cases solely because they really 
belong to a characterisation of this most ancient court 
in existence, a court which events in the near future may 
snuff out completely, as being a relic of the past not fit 
to survive. 

However, among the Habsburgs of the day there are 
quite a number not only highly respectable and full of 
the homely and domestic virtues of humbler folk, but 
also some men of ability. It is not possible, with space 
requirements, to furnish in every case details which, in 
themselves, might prove of interest to the reader. But 
I will skim the surface at least, lingering here and there 
for a moment, without laying claim to exhausting my 
theme. 

One of the most sympathetic of these Habsburgs is the 
Archduke Leopold Salvator. For a space of fifteen 
months he was my close neighbour, so close indeed that 
I used to meet him or members of his large family every 
day. He belongs to the Toscana branch and is 51 years 
of age. His wife. Donna Blanca, is the daughter of the 
late pretender to the throne of Spain, Don Carlos. The 
couple have ten children, five of each sex. With the ex- 
ception of the smallest, a youngster of six, the boys have 
all gone to the front — as simple privates at first, gain- 
ing promotion, one at the tender age of only sixteen, by 
conspicuous gallantry. Their father has been filling, for 



168 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

a number of years before the war, and is still holding, 
the very important post of inspector of the entire artil- 
lery for the Austro-Hungarian army and navy. In that 
capacity he strove hard to obtain from the two parlia- 
ments grants sufficient and in time to construct those 
heavy ordnance which all military experts had predicted 
would be indispensably needed in the next great war. 
His efforts proved in vain; at least the appropriations 
were made too late and in amount quite insufficient. 
Archduke Leopold Salvator, though personally strongly 
averse to war, had all along been convinced that such a 
great war, with all Europe for long resembling a pow- 
der magazine, was bound to come. On an understanding 
with the aged emperor, but unknown to either the Hun- 
garian or Austrian parliament (except a few members 
in his confidence), the archduke managed to have those 
much-needed heavy guns made, mostly at the Skoda 
Works in Pilsen; to have them tested thoroughly and 
installed in the army. These were, I scarcely have to 
point out, the marvellous 30.5 centimetre howitzers and 
the 42-centimetre mortars that played such a decisive 
part in the early days of the war. They had been de- 
signed, made and tested wholly without the connivance, 
even the knowledge, of the German general staff. Of this 
and other details I speak with full possession of the facts. 
Liege, it may be recalled, fell before these Austrian guns, 
and the quick capture of Antwerp was also largely due 
to them. Throughout this long war Archduke Leopold 
Salvator has contributed enormously, by his special 
gifts, to the success of the Austrian and Hungarian ar- 
tillery. 

And this same Archduke Leopold Salvator I met, on 
the day war was declared on Russia, under circumstances 
which impressed me deeply. It was on a hot, sunny day. 



THE IMPEEIAL COURT 169 

and I was out for a stroll to the shady woods but a few 
minutes ' distance from my little house. The road lay in 
the glare of the sun, and as I neared a bend in it facing 
the extensive palace of the archducal family and the 
grounds in front of it, I was almost blinded by the light. 
Thus it was I came unawares on a picturesque scene. At 
various points along his orchards and vineyards (slop- 
ing toward the valley down to Vienna proper) and paths 
Donna Blanca, the archduke's Spanish and pious spouse, 
had caused tall rustic shrines and crucifixes to be erected 
for the wayfarer and the help of the house to stop and 
say an ave or two. And before one of these the stately 
figure of the archduke was kneeling in the dust of the 
road, with the sun beating down on his bared head. I 
halted and removed my own hat. Beside his master knelt 
the chauffeur, a sturdy Pole from Cracow, his lips like- 
wise moving in silent prayer. Not heeding my pres- 
ence the archduke continued in his devotions for another 
rapt five minutes. Then he slowly rose, his face pale 
and twitching. My salute he answered by a motion bid- 
ding me to approach. 

''The emperor has just sent me word that war was 
declared on Russia two hours ago," he said gravely and 
in a low tense voice. 

"And your imperial highness has just said a prayer 
for the success of the Austro-Hungarian arms?" I ven- 
tured to remark. 

The archduke shook his head. ''No, not that," he then 
murmured, as though to himself. "I have prayed to God 
for peace. I fear it will be an awful war, a long war — 
weary months, perhaps years." 

"Years?" I said. 

"Yes, years — I am afraid so — ^years." And with that 
he dismissed me. 



170 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

** Years,'' lie liad said, "years." I think lie was about 
the only one in Vienna whose ideas grasped the fearful 
situation. For during the first burst of war fever no- 
body I heard anywhere calculated the war to last longer 
than a few months. That, too, seemed to be the gen- 
eral impression in all the belligerent countries. 

Another eminently wholesome and well-meaning mem- 
ber of the imperial house is Archduke Frederick, who by 
reason of the physical incapacity and advanced age of 
the emperor was appointed, at the very outset of the war, 
acting commander-in-chief of all the armed forces of 
Austria-Hungary. Greatly liked and esteemed through- 
out the monarchy for his sterling character, his equable 
and cheerful disposition, his admitted impartiality on all 
questions of race and politics; married to an excellent 
German wife (the Bavarian princess Isabella) and on 
the best of terms with the powerful ally and friend, the 
Emperor Wilham II, furthermore of enormous wealth 
(estimated at about 350,000,000 Austrian crowns, say, 
$70,000,000 at the normal rate of exchange), and im- 
bued with a strong sentiment of duty and patriotism, this 
man seemed to be the fitting incumbent for this all-im- 
portant post. Ever smiling and of excellent humour, 
with an iron constitution that made him withstand the 
privations and hardships of war (for he, too, very often 
had his headquarters under the thatched roof of a peas- 
ant's cottage, eating the plain fare of the soldier, after 
eighteen hours of the twenty-four rattling along rough 
roads in his auto), this sturdy and easy-going gentleman 
of sixty did the best he knew how. Of mediocre intel- 
lect and of but slight experience in actual warfare, like- 
wise a trifling too yielding to personal influences brought 
to bear on him, he proved, though, in the long run and 
under the adverse conditions that he had to face in this 



THE IMPEEIAL COURT 171 

grim and relentless struggle for tlie further existence of 
what the Habsburgs have always looked upon as their 
patrimony, not quite able to cope with overwhelming 
difificulties. In every other respect this elderly cousin of 
the late emperor was above reproach. His courage and 
confidence were unfailing. His liberality was boundless 
towards the army. From his vast and highly productive 
estates in Silesia, Moravia and Hungary he furnished 
all the while, free and as a contribution out of his own 
means, nearly all their produce in cereals, milk, cheese, 
bacon, etc. ; even his famed distillery (located at Teschen, 
Austrian Silesia) sent to the army commissariat all the 
table liquor, especially sUvovic (plum brandy) and 
Tcummel. His bounty has gladdened the heart and 
strengthened the stomach of innumerable of his soldiers. 
And his whole family, from his wife to his youngest 
daughter, has devoted itself to Red Cross and other good 
work. One of the maiden daughters, as Sister Irmgard, 
is a Red Cross nurse, and a very efficient and gentle one 
at that. 

Perhaps a few words relative to the late emperor may 
be proper here, especially as these refer to points not 
generally appreciated. Francis Joseph became ruler of 
a composite realm at the early age of 18, after his uncle, 
the Emperor Ferdinand, had been unwilling to capitu- 
late to the revolution of 1848, yet unable to check it. The 
youth undertook the hard task of bringing order out 
of chaos not with the proverbial rashness of his age, 
but rather under the domination of his strong-minded 
and intensely ambitious mother, the Archduchess Sophia. 
He not only succumbed to her paramount influence but 
he remained under it until her death. In fact, he was 
afraid of her. She determined all great matters of state 
for him; he married the wife she had picked; he went 



172 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

to the front, in 1848, in Italy and received his baptism 
of fire at Ste. Lucia to humour her; he coped with the 
rising in Hungary and drowned it finally, with the active 
aid of Nicholas of Russia, in blood at her command ; and 
finally, the Ausgleich with Hungary in 1867, she also per- 
suaded him to accept. 

The late Emperor Francis Joseph was a man of nar- 
row but intensely honest mind. In that he was a thor- 
ough Habsburg. That race has, with a couple of excep- 
tions, within 650 years, bred none but men of that descrip- 
tion — ^narrow but honest. He never shirked what he con- 
ceived to be his duty. Otherwise his nature was rather 
shallow as well. The world has admired this man who 
stood up undaunted under all the strokes of adversity 
and personal sorrow. And in a sense this admiration 
was well bestowed. But to a man of his peculiar moral 
and mental construction such steadfastness and robust 
persistency came easy. He did not feel deeply. His pa- 
tience was very largely obstinacy. His tastes were sim- 
ple — a soldier's campaign tastes. Very true. But that 
was only because he was unable to relish higher or more 
aesthetic joys. The tragedy of his family life — the bit- 
ter estrangement from his finely attuned, high-strung 
wife, the jealousy of and tyranny over his highly en- 
dowed only son Rudolph — was largely of his own crea- 
tion. He was mentally and morally unable to fathom 
such complex natures as those of wife and son, and be- 
ing unable to do so broke them. His marital infidelity, 
notorious in Vienna but forgiven, nay applauded, be- 
cause in this he was a true Viennese, did not weigh on his 
soul. But it bred a horrible disillusionment in his wife's 
heart, a feeling akin to physical and moral aversion. The 
grosser appetites ruled him until his last hour. His dis- 
graceful connection with Kathi Schratt, the actress, en- 



THE IMPERIAL COURT 173 

dnred througli all Ms griefs and pangs, and superseded 
all other attractions. He was a man with the fleshly pas- 
sions of a Louis XV, who like him was the bien-aime, the 
well-beloved of his people. But that was in the 18th cen- 
tury, and this in the 19th. Kindly by instinct he was, 
surely; but it was the surface kindliness of an ordinary 
nature. There is nothing in all the innumerable anec- 
dotes the people of Vienna tell of him that might be 
classed as high-mindedness, although the soldier^s 
generous appreciation of a foe worthy of his steel he did 
have in a high degree. 

Perhaps the basest thing Francis Joseph did in his life 
— and this was towards the close of it — ^was his treat- 
ment of the children of his cousin, Archduke Ernst. It 
is a story worth telling, an unusual story. This Arch- 
duke Ernst was something rather different from the 
typical Habsburg. He was shy, an artist by heart, a 
bachelor, mortally afraid of his sovereign and cousin. 
Of course, being a Habsburg he had to hold a rank 
in the army. His garrison town for a certain time 
was Laibach, in Carniola. And there he met and fell in 
love with a charming lady of good family, but living in 
somewhat humble circumstances. He wooed and won 
her, but only in the good old-fashioned way — ^with a ring 
on her finger and a wedding ceremony in church, per- 
formed by the parish priest of those days. For all that 
happened long ago. Now the Archduke Ernst had a for- 
tune estimated at his death at about $2,000,000 in Ameri- 
can money. His ''morganatic" wife (for the groom, fear- 
ing his cousin, had not attempted to obtain the permis- 
sion and sanction to the union, as he ought to have done 
under the family rules of the House of Habsburg) knew 
all this, for her highborn husband had often explained 
it to her. But she also knew that her marriage was per- 



174 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

fectly valid under the civil and ecclesiastic laws of Aus- 
tria. The children she had borne him were, therefore, 
also legitimate offspring, entitled to all their father might 
leave them on his demise. When the archduke died about 
ten years ago the wife had preceded him by a few years. 
Rather dreading sinister court influences that might suc- 
ceed in cheating his children out of all or part of their 
inheritance. Archduke Ernst, during his latter days, con- 
sulted his brother, Archduke Rainier, as well as other 
relatives and friends, and finally, too, a lawyer of note. 
Baron Gianelia. The latter, treacherously, confided the 
story to the old emperor. When Archduke Ernst finally 
did die, a testament was found bequeathing the bulk of 
his vast fortune to his four children, three daughters and 
one son. The son had risen to the rank of major in the 
regular army, and the daughters were married. All four 
lived in rather straitened circumstances. The lawyer, 
Baron Gianelia, however, acting for what is known as 
the Habsburg court chamber, and under instructions 
from the aged emperor, set up the claim, (1) that no real 
valid marriage had ever taken place; that (2) the four 
children were bastards and entitled to nothing; and (3) 
that the whole estate of the late Archduke Ernst, there 
being no nearer relative, must go to the brother of de- 
ceased. Archduke Rainier, himself a childless octogena- 
rian. Under all sorts of pressure the children, all but 
one, relinquished their claim, some small sums being paid 
them for compensation. But one of the daughters, hav- 
ing children of her own and being both unwilling to have 
the stigma of illegitimacy attached to herself and to have 
the children done out of what she rightfully considered 
her share of the estate of her father (who, some time be- 
fore his death, specifically acknowledged hei; and prom- 
ised her ample redress in the financial way), went to law. 



THE IMPERIAL COURT 175 

That lawsuit was about the most despicable subversion 
of justice that can be conceived. It went through all the 
stages of chicanery, backed by the highest influences in 
state and court. The upshot was that the plaintiff, al- 
though she had made a mother's heroic fight for her own 
good name and the rights of her children, and although 
in the long course of it several of the judges having a 
hand in the various decisions were upright enough rather 
to resign their office than submit to the insidious influ- 
ences at work, the upshot of it all, I say, was that the 
poor woman lost her cause and broke her heart. It was 
a sad case ; it was a frightful miscarriage of justice, and 
if not entirely, at least partially, the aged emperor was 
responsible for it. 

Singularly enough, outside Austria-Hungary the fact 
has scarcely ever received mention that the younger 
brother of the late emperor. Archduke Carl Ludwig, 
though close to eighty himself, is still alive. Nor does 
it seem to be known that this Carl Ludwig for many years 
had been handled very severely by his august brother 
and sovereign. The latter fact, though, is scarcely to 
be wondered at, for Carl Ludwig has not only shown him- 
self all through life scarcely better than an idiot, but 
also morally a defective. He never married. Francis 
Joseph banished him from court, many years ago, and 
the last heard from this sprig of royalty he was still 
steeped in senile debauchery. 

A peculiar position within the dynasty is occupied by 
the Archdukes Carl Stephan and Joseph. The latter is 
known far and wide as the ''Magyar archduke," and the 
former as the ''Pole," owing to their racial and political 
affiliations. Joseph is the only member of the Habsburg 
family that bears the Magyars sincere affection. With 
his wife, the Archduchess Augusta, he has resided, fill 



176 AUSTRIA-HUNG AEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

the beginning of the war, at the royal castle in Buda. 
Throughout the war he has conunanded one or more Hun- 
garian army corps. He has endeared himself to the Mag- 
yars in every way. His household is run according to 
Hungarian notions. Only Magyar is spoken there. He 
is eloquent and his frequent speeches have always been 
intensely patriotic — from the Hungarian point of view. 
Many people say that he aims at wearing the crown of 
an independent Hungary some day. With the late em- 
peror and king he was never a favourite. He shows the 
typical Magyar spirit and is thoroughly sympathetic to 
the men of Hungary. As a soldier he has shown in this 
war no great qualities either as a strategist or tactician, 
but to compensate for that fully in the eyes of his Mag- 
yar soldiers he has throughout given evidence of reck- 
less daring, of indomitable valour. Scores of times he 
has exposed himself to death in the foremost trenches. 
He was wounded twice. He has gone into battle in the 
ranks, armed, like his men, with hand grenades. He 
has treated his men on a footing of perfect equality. In 
short, he was, and is, the apple of his eye for the Hun- 
garian fighter. His wife, the Archduchess Augusta, is 
at the head of the Hungarian Red Cross, and has likewise 
done wonders in her own womanly way. 

Archduke Carl Stephan again has long been the chief 
candidate for the crown of a reconstructed Poland. At 
least so far as the Poles of Galicia can determine that 
issue. For with the Austrian Poles, i.e., the Poles of 
Galicia, he is immensely popular. To all intents and pur- 
poses he and his whole family are Polish — though in the 
matter of descent that is only partially the case. His 
chief residential quarters are at Saybusch, where he 
owns a vast and splendid estate and where everything, 
from roof to cellar is Polish — servants, guests, admin- 



THE IMPERIAL COURT 177 

istration, vernacular, etc., etc. By every means Carl 
Stephan, a man of about 50, has emphasised his love for 
the Poles. His wife is the Archduchess Maria Theresa, 
who owns a large and fine palace in the diplomatic quar- 
ter of Vienna, and who during the war has tirelessly or- 
ganised aid for those soldiers become blind through 
illness or wounds received in action. But her own ample 
means, as well as those of her husband, have gone mostly 
to the equipment and relief of the Polish Legion that 
was started three years ago to fight for ultimate inde- 
pendence under the eagles of Austria. Of her daughters, 
two are married to Poles of historic names, viz.. Prince 
Radziwill and Prince Czartoryski. Unfortunately for 
the ambitions of Carl Stephan, he is not in the good 
books of Emperor William. In fact, that monarch con- 
siders him an unsafe man, he having, on several occa- 
sions, shown his sympathy with the Polish subjects of 
Prussia a bit too plainly. At any rate, the project of 
making Carl Stephan constitutional ruler of recreated 
Poland is still in abeyance and seems to hang fire of late. 
It deserves comment that the House of Habsburg, in- 
dependent of means (called "appanage"), voted by the 
Austrian parliament and of others come to them in their 
individual capacity, derives the largest portion of its 
income from the so-called Habsburg Fund, an accumu- 
lation of several centuries. There are several other 
funds, such as the Este Fund, which are reserved exclu- 
sively to those branches of the dynasty. But the Habs- 
burg Fund is by far the most considerable. It is esti- 
mated at about 500 millions, and consists in lands, estates, 
interest-bearing papers, mines and tenements. To an 
annual share of the proceeds of this fund every member 
of the Habsburg family is entitled, so that — if it came to 
the worst — ^none of them will have to go a-begging. The 



178 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

emperor, through an administrator appointed by Mm, 
has the management and disposal of it. Several mem- 
bers of the house, however, have relinquished their claim 
to it. One of these is the Archduke Frederick, the wealth- 
iest individual Habsburg, with the exception of the em- 
peror himself. The Este and some other separate funds, 
such as the Toscana and Parma one, originate from the 
time when the Habsburgs held a portion of Northern or 
Central Italy, such as Lombardy, Venetia, Modena, 
Parma, and Tuscany. When they left, under the im- 
pulse of a revolutionary rising of their dear subjects, a 
settlement was made and a fund created for the dispos- 
sessed rulers and their kin and descendants. Thus, Zita, 
the present empress, enjoys certain separate revenues 
from the Este fund; so do her brothers, the Princes 
Elias and Isidore. None of the House of Habsburg is 
poor, although some are vastly wealthier than others. 
Inheritances and legacies are constantly swelling the 
bulk. The appropriations voted by the Austrian parlia- 
ment (for the Hungarian one votes none, except for the 
king himself) are not very large per head, it is true, but 
in the aggregate they amount to a big sum. 

The Austrian people, nevertheless, view their court 
rather leniently; all except the rabid socialists who in- 
veigh against these ''Tagediebe" (loafers) rather fre- 
quently in the columns of their party press. At least 
they did before the establishment of strict censorship, 
since which they are gagged, of course. However, the 
great majority of the Austrians look upon the Vienna 
court and the whole dynasty with good-natured indul- 
gence. Since they are fond of show and splendour, of 
glittering court festivities and handsome horses and turn- 
outs, they consider that by paying the piper they also 
earn the right of being interested spectators. Thus, they 



THE IMPERIAL COURT 179 

unfailingly throng streets and parks and squares wlien 
anything is going on at court of special moment. In the 
crowds are always some court flunkies or others ac- 
quainted with the details, and these shout out informa- 
tion for the general benefit, often almost in the face of 
imperial or royal personages themselves. That is done 
sometimes in a naive manner that must be, I should im- 
agine, rather embarrassing to those criticised. Thus, I 
remember on the occasion of Kaiser Wilham's visit a 
year ago, at the corner of the Ringstrasse where his coach 
and six turned off towards Schonbrunn, one ubiquitous 
woman (evidently possessed of inside facts) shrieked out 
in a shrill voice such bits of information about the Kaiser 
as: ''He's wearing a new uniform of the Hungarian 
hussars"; ''he's got his mustache waxed tight"; "he 
looks thin and worried, no wonder," and so forth. And 
all so that he must have heard every word. I could never 
discover in such motley Austrian crowds any trace or 
hint of a longing to be rid of such monarchic trappings, 
or any leanings toward republican forms of govern- 
ment. In Hungary it is different ; but the Vienna people 
are still intensely loyal to the throne. 

That could also be plainly seen at the funeral ceremo- 
nies of the late Francis Ferdinand, in June, 1914. For 
despite the fact that he had not been at all popular with 
the Austrians of Teutonic stock, the Viennese honoured 
in him the murdered heir to the throne. The archduke 
had been hated by them in life not alone because he had 
taken a Czech woman for wife and was credited with a 
design to establish "Trialism" (in place of a dual a triad 
monarchy, with the Slav element as the third and most 
important), but because of his entire personality which 
to them was intensely unsympathetic. Indeed, Francis 
Ferdinand was rather rude and rough in his instincts 



180 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

and demeanour. He liad none of that distinctively Aus- 
trian easy good-nature. He was a martinet with the 
army, exacting and often brutal with his intimates and 
his servants. All sorts of stories are current explaining 
the almost hostility felt for him by the masses. But he 
seems to have been a strong, a rugged character, one of 
the kind that poor Austria-Hungary needed to pull her 
out of her slough of despond. The young man now in his 
place is of a different fibre. His face betrays weakness. 
But it also beams with the bright smile of the Austrian. 



CHAPTER XII 

ATJSTEIA-HUNGAEY DUEIFG THE WAE 

General belief abroad that the Dual Monarchy eonld not withstand the 
shock — Shared by many within her own borders — Grounds for this 
belief — The contrary took place — "War acted like a cement knitting 
the loose parts into a firm whole — The Entente Powers themselves to 
blame for that — Moods and expectations at the outbreak of the 
giant struggle — Austrians relieved from the load of self-distrust 
and doubt — Street scenes — Stump speakers — With hurrahs and 
smiles into Armageddon — ^Disillusionment — The first trains of 
wounded — Prisoners of war received with silent compassion — How 
the grip of hard times set in — Only from early in 1915 the serious- 
ness of the situation realised — The awful crop of the Carpathian 
Campaign — ^Fall of Przemysl — "Well, that is the way with us here" 
— Slow plans for providing for a long war — Woman to the fore — 
How she replaces the men in the trenches — Amusing features of 
this — ^Female butchers, drivers, blacksmiths, bricklayers, street 
paviors — The spirit of self-sacrifice awakened — Gaieties notwith- 
standing — Social problems cropping up — Tremendous increase in 
youthful criminality — Raising the wage standard. 

One of the miracles wrought by this war is surely the 
reawakening of Austria-Hungary. Abroad scarcely any 
one had deemed it possible for the ancient monarchy, that 
had been crumbling to pieces before the very eyes of 
careful observers, to weather the storm and withstand 
the awful forces of assault let loose from every quarter. 
Those who knew the country best held that opinion most 
firmly. Even within her own borders if not the majority 
of the people then certainly a very large portion of it 

181 



182 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYaUOT EMPIRE 

thought the hour of political doom had struck for Aus- 
tria-Hungary. Centrifugal agencies had been visibly at 
work undermining foundations, and hardly anything op- 
posing such tendencies could be perceived. In fact, it 
had been predicted, time and time again, in Austria's own 
parliament, that the next great war would sweep the mon- 
archy out of existence. True, in Hungary such a state 
of mind did not prevail to the same degree. Patriotism, 
faith in the future of the country as a permanent political 
entity, are vital there, even if it must be conceded that 
the oppressed minorities suffering under the Magyarising 
yoke of the dominant race, had serious grievances and 
that their loyalty at best proceeded from the head and 
not from the heart. But as to Austria there could be no 
question at all. It was honeycombed with discontent and 
apparently fast disintegrating. Nor were grounds for 
such discontent lacking, as is pointed out elsewhere in de- 
tail. 

Briefly, besides a number of political reasons, besides 
the insidious race troubles, there were potent social and 
economic motives to be pleaded for the disgruntled ele- 
ments. And the reflex of all this dissatisfaction could 
be plainly discerned, year after year, in the steadily 
growing emigration. Indeed, so threatening a feature 
of the economic life of both Austria and Hungary had 
this emigration become shortly before the outbreak of the 
war that both governments resorted to the most drastic 
measures to check it. During the fiscal year 1913, de- 
spite all the severe and very comprehensive steps (includ- 
ing, as these did, the criminal prosecution of several hun- 
dreds of emigration agents ; the absolute prohibition for 
all male persons between 17 and 35 to leave the country 
except by special authorisation and with the permission 
of the military and civic officials ; the imposition of heavy 



AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY DURING THE WAR 183 

fines and jail sentences for all those wlio had facilitated 
the escape of persons of military age across the frontiers, 
etc.), the tide of emigration had still rushed on at the 
rate of over 400,000 for the entire monarchy, beside an- 
other 600,000, in round figures, that as ' ' season wander- 
ers" had left the more backward provinces — especially 
Galicia and Croatia — to earn during the spring and sum- 
mer, mostly in Germany, the bread for the support of 
themselves and their families which at home they were 
unable to find. 

Well, the war came, and in the face of all this and of 
much more here left unmentioned, the ancient empire not 
only stood the awful test but actually underwent a reju- 
venating process during it. All those fragments that 
before the war had hung but loosely together, were fused 
into a firm whole, if but for a time. The fires of a com- 
mon danger welded them together; the terrific blows 
dealt by fate hastened but the process of consolidation. 

To any one who, like myself, was merely an interested 
onlooker, the thing seemed nothing short of a miracle. 
It was certainly a very striking illustration of a truth — 
duly appreciated by but few — that such a historic struc- 
ture, no matter how heterogeneous and how casual the 
mutual adhesion seemed to be, is not easily demolished. 
The mere force of inertia militates against destruction. 
There are unseen ties holding the parts together below 
the surface. There are hundreds of special reasons, many 
of them no doubt quite trivial in themselves, making for 
the continuance of the whole, despite all those other hun- 
dreds of conflicting interests and warring feelings that 
in times of security had it all their own way. Above all, 
if I have succeeded in reading aright the psyche of the 
average Austrian, there was one determining factor mak- 
ing for the preservation of this weird and polyglot com- 



184 AUSTRIA-HUNaAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

pound, and that is the dread of the unknown. In talking 
over things in their naive way, the soldiers in the 
trenches, the peasants by their homely firesides, the ur- 
ban residents during their toil, all seem to have argued 
about this way: Well, what is to become of us if our 
enemies prevail Should we be better off under some 
new rule? Would there be lighter taxation? Would 
life be easier for us ? And, on the whole, the conclusion 
they reached seems to have been in the negative. In 
other words, they decided that it would not be wise, in 
order to escape the evils they knew of, to flee to new 
ones. 

At any rate, whether I understood these simple-souled 
people correctly or not, this much admits of no doubt: 
That the people of Austria in overwhelming numbers 
made up their minds to stick by what they got ; to stand 
by their old emperor in his days of trouble. And if I 
may express an opinion here it appears to me that the 
Entente Powers themselves were very largely to blame 
for this decision. If the Entente Powers had been wise 
enough to hold a conclave, early in the war, and then to 
issue, as the result of their deliberations, a statement 
frank and comprehensible and honest, by which their re- 
sponsible statesmen had bound themselves to a pro- 
gramme of reform, pledging the good faith of the west- 
ern nations and of Russia to inviolability of territory, au- 
tonomy, full internal rights and economic prosperity, 
Austria-Hungary in all likelihood would have been theirs. 
Such a programme would have tallied with the proclaimed 
Entente aims of the war. It would have appealed very 
strongly to the various races within the empire weary 
of ceaseless and bootless strife. It would have been a 
reasonable compromise. But instead of that the Entente 
statesmen merely intrigued and made hollow protesta- 



AUSTEIA-HUNGARY DURING THE WAR 185 

tions, made promises which, even if they had been carried 
out, would not have solved the difficult problems under 
the weight of which Austria-Hungary had been stagger- 
ing for so many years. And when that did not have the 
desired effect, declarations believed to be authentic be- 
gan to appear in the enemy as well as neutral press 
wherein the Entente Powers threatened the complete 
political destruction of the old empire, with annexation 
of territories to neighbours more or less greedy and cor- 
respondingly hated, such as Serbia, Rumania, Italy and 
Russia, leaving but an impotent and dismembered rem- 
nant. It is true, this picture of their future did in a meas- 
ure appeal to certain limited sections of Austria (to Bo- 
hemia, at least to the Czech part of it, particularly), but 
it did not do so to any part of Hungary, not even to the 
Rumanian districts of it. On the contrary, it spurred 
them on to more stubborn resistance. It made Hungary, 
for the time being, one political unit. And those proposi- 
tions and fanciful dreams emanated from so many (often 
wholly apocryphal) sources and were often framed in 
such offensive language and conceived in such total mis- 
apprehension of the soul of Austria-Hungary that they 
could not fail to have just the opposite effect desired. 

Interesting the opening months of the bloody drama 
this war has turned out to be certainly were. I had spent 
nearly two years in Austria when the bullets of Cabrino- 
vic and his associates put an end to the lives of Archduke 
Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the throne, and of his con- 
sort, the Duchess Sophie. Up to that hour I had 
strangely missed any visible token of patriotism, even in 
Vienna. Scarcely ever, for example, did one see the Aus- 
trian flag with its Black-and- Yellow in the streets or on 
top of buildings ; the Red- White-Green of Hungary still 
more seldom. But from that hour on all changed. It 



186 ATJSTEIA-HUNaAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

was as though some powerful restorative had been ad- 
ministered to the whole people. They not only instantly 
became fervently patriotic; no, they turned chauvinists 
and jingoes. That whole month from the end of June 
to the end of July, 1914, was intensely hot and dry 
throughout the monarchy, as though to keep step with 
the aroused temper of the nation. Day after day the sun 
shone glaringly from a deep-blue firmament, and day by 
day I watched with keen attention the rising tide of war 
fever. In those days I saw and heard what I had not 
so far observed among this people of indolent, easy good 
nature. Downtown in the heart of Vienna, and away 
out in the quiet slumberous suburbs, men would sud- 
denly be seized by a veritable frenzy. They would climb 
on top of a soap box, mount an auto or a cart standing 
by the curbstone, or be hoisted to the pedestal of one of 
the many monuments, and then harangue the quickly 
gathering crowd. Where did they all come from in a 
moment 1 Invariably an Austrian flag would be unfurled 
to the breeze, a war hymn would be intoned and the stir- 
ring words of it would kindle eyes and make pulses throb. 
And then your stump speaker would begin. And how 
he did hold forth ! The gist of his impassioned tale would 
always run like this: That the old empire had been 
asleep for half a century, shamefully asleep, while down 
below to the southeast a cunning, boastful, malevolent 
dwarf had mocked them all, spat at them, challenged them 
a hundredfold ; how it was time now to awake from this 
inglorious sleep, to be up and doing; how this wicked 
dwarf, the Serb, had in his presumption at last murder- 
ously slain the man on whom Austria had built her hopes 
of a brighter future, of prouder days; and how to the 
north another neighbour, one half bear, half man, but 
wholly evil, had encouraged and egged on this arrogant 



AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY DURING THE WAR 187 

pygmy to the last and final outrage; but how they, the 
men of Austria, must now avenge the murder and see to 
it that nothing like that should ever become possible 
again. And so forth and so on in the same strain. And 
I must confess that these orators sprung from the loins 
of the people did talk well. Their eloquence had some- 
thing elemental in it. They simply swept their audi- 
ences off their feet. And the effect was lasting. From 
day to day I noticed plainly how the hysteria spread. 
These preachers of ''war as a remedy" invaded even the 
palaces of the old emperor and of the archdukes, of the 
Minister of War, Fieldmarshal Krobatin, and the dingy 
old pile of the Foreign Office on the Ballplatz, close to the 
Hofburg, and everyivhere it was the same spectacle. 
Everywhere the easygoing Viennese were wrought up to 
the pitch of martial furor. The old songs of Austria's 
former glory, the lay of conquering Prince Eugene, the 
winsome tune of Haydn's ''Gott erhalte," burst forth 
and were heard everywhere, played everywhere in the 
public amusement places and parks; the bands intoned 
them in the beer and wine gardens; and as though an 
electric spark had run riot, everybody rose, old and 
young, men of all ranks, and while they sang tears of 
emotion glistened in their eyes. Never before had I seen 
a people in such a delirium of wrath. 

Was there a movement on foot to bring all this about? 
Or was it really the spontaneous outburst of a people 
still treasuring a great past, still proud of the warlike 
achievements of their forbears'? I must own I was un- 
able to determine that point. At times it certainly did 
look to me as though it were a master hand thus playing 
cleverly on the heartstrings of an unconscious throng. 
There were circumstances that made such a supposition 
plausible. All the more as one followed the skilfully 



188 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

launched catcli phrases in that portion of the press, both 
in Vienna and Budapest, inspired commonly by the For- 
eign Office. Certainly Count Berchtold, at that time 
guiding the destinies of the monarchy as a whole, and 
Count Tisza, the Hungarian premier, were evidently in 
favour of adopting the most ruthless measures against 
little Serbia, the "dwarf" aforesaid who had caused 
them so many sleepless nights. 

But be that as it may, when the night finally came, the 
night of July 24th, and the wire flashed the news from 
Belgrade that Serbia had rejected the Austro-Hungarian 
ultimatum, the whole town, the whole two millions of 
Vienna, were strung up for war. I went down to the cen- 
tre, where the little newsboys were distributing ''extras" 
— tiny leaflets containing the skeleton news in block, bold- 
faced type — and there could be no doubt in anybody's 
mind that it meant War, — ^War with a big W. The whole 
town was frantic with joy. Total strangers embraced 
each other. They wept for joy. The nightmare of hu- 
miliation, of disdain gulped down like a nauseous drug 
for ages, was off their breasts. They felt like freemen, 
like heroes fit for battle. It was the same in Budapest, 
as I subsequently read in the papers; it was similar in 
the provincial capitals. If ever a nation went into war 
as to a feast, as to a cleansing, strengthening bath, Aus- 
tria-Hungary surely did on that sultry, nerve-racking 
night of July 24th, 1914. 

Neither was it a flash in the pan merely. When the 
news came that Russia had made Serbia's cause her own, 
and that war was on with the big northern colossus, it 
found the people still in the same mood of martial joy- 
ousness, if one may use such an expression. The old 
emperor had read his many-tongued "peoples" aright. 
His proclamations, crisp and ringing, set them all ablaze 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY DURING THE WAR 189 

anew. They were firmly convinced of the righteousness 
of their cause. They were sure of undivided support of 
their great ally, Germany. They reckoned, every one of 
them almost, with a short victorious war. People would 
demonstrate to you that it must be so. Even the women 
were caught in that net of specious pleading. In the 
stores the owner would address you: "Not longer than 
three months at the utmost, don't you think so? Why, 
there isn't enough money in the whole world to carry on 
war nowadays for a longer period ; war is so expensive, 
you know. Three months — then peace with glory. ' ' And 
the poor woman whom I noted a year later wearing 
mourning for her eldest who had been killed in Russia, 
would give me my change with hands trembling with ex- 
citement. 

Then came the days when endless trains rolled out of 
Vienna toward the northern front. Inside were jammed 
young soldiers between 21 and 28 ; dapper officers, their 
eyes shining with valour, all wearing oak leaves or tiny 
pine twigs in their new caps of field-grey, shouting, sing- 
ing in chorus, their weeping sweethearts, wives or moth- 
ers catching a last glance of them. On the doors of tlieir 
cars, all over their cars, in fact, they had chalked rhymed 
doggerel of their own composition, distichs or couplets 
poking good-natured fun at the foe they were to meet 
so soon and whom they undervalued, oh ! so sadly. Hu- 
mour, reckless humour in these verses. Stanzas there 
were concluding with the remark: *' Good-bye, till we 
meet again at Moscow." And how many of them later 
on actually did meet the Russians in Moscow! Only it 
was a different kind of meeting from the one fancied. 
Well, they knew none of these things at that time. They 
were buoyant, cocksure of quick victory. 

A little later the first transports of war prisoners and 



190 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

of tlieir own wounded — almost simultaneously — ^began to 
arrive. I recall the immense multitude of anxious rela- 
tives and friends (for one of the regiments garrisoned in 
Vienna, the famous Deutschmeister, had contributed a 
goodly share of these victims of the war) one breathless 
August night waiting, packed six deep, near the huge 
complex of buildings making up the General Hospital in 
Alsen St., Vienna. Now the temper of the people had al- 
ready begun to change. War seemed no longer a picnic. 
They waited dumbly, with beating hearts. At last the 
long, long procession of Eed Cross autos, rumbling hol- 
lowly over the rough pavement, began to arrive — slowly, 
cautiously. The wide gates of the place opened from the 
inside. They are still opening to-day for the same pur- 
pose. One by one the drab vehicles, big cross painted on 
the side, vanished into the inner court. But there were 
too many of these autos. There was a jam. Several of 
them turned off inside. They contained poor fellows who 
had died in transit. Other autos had their cargoes un- 
loaded, and on stretchers these wounded men were borne 
through the hallway. One of these was groaning very 
low. A woman darted forward from the front row and 
put a flask of wine to the cracked lips of the sufferer. 
''He looks just like my own boy!" she murmured, as she 
crept back into her place. Many of this transport came 
from the Serbian front. They were badly hacked or shot 
to pieces by the old-fashioned Turkish handjars or an- 
tiquated bell-mouthed blunderbuses the Serbian govern- 
ment had equipped the bands of franctireurs with out of 
its arsenal at Kraguyevatz. "These wounds will never 
heal," said one of the receiving internes of the hospital. 
In those early days of the war the tremendous task of 
taking proper care of the hosts of sick and wounded was 
not as yet handled well. It required a number of months 



AUSTEIA-HUNGARY DURINO THE WAR 191 

to organise and systematise it properly, and even tlien 
many novel features had to be created in order to fit 
newly arising conditions. At the time I speak of it hap- 
pened very frequently that of a trainload of men brought 
in from the front no less than twenty-five per cent, or 
more perished on the journey, partly through lack of 
adequate care, partly because they had not been in a fit 
condition for a long transport. But all these things grew 
rapidly better. 

A few days later I witnessed the arrival in Vienna of 
the first large number of war prisoners. They came in 
two big sections, one from the Russian, the other from 
the Serbian front, about 13,000 in all on that day. It was 
very interesting to watch the process. Speaking gener- 
ally, the Russians were a little stunned by all the new and 
unlooked-for things they saw, but otherwise quite cheer- 
ful, almost boyishly happy, some of them. With big, 
trustful, childlike eyes they regarded the crowds lining 
the streets near the Northern Station where they had 
debarked. Their destination was a hastily constructed 
camp in the vicinity of Wels, Upper Austria. Later on 
this camp was one of those I visited. Among the Rus- 
sians the infantry men formed the great bulk. The re- 
mainder were largely Cossacks, and these had a totally 
different aspect from that of the others — ^they wore a 
forbidding, distrustful, stem mien. The Serbians, of 
whom about 150 were women and young boys from ten 
upwards — and these had been made prisoners while en- 
gaged in guerilla warfare against the invaders — looked 
all of them like the Cossacks. Sullen, vindicative, fa- 
natical, young and old alike avoided observation as much 
as they could. There were many old men in their serried 
ranks, men with long, straggling whiskers of grey and 



192 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

with eyes that made the impression of extinct volcanoes 
with now and then a last lurid flare in them. 

What interested me more than all else was the recep- 
tion given by the populace to this motley host of their 
vanquished foes. For this reception was quite other- 
wise from what I had expected. It was compassionate, 
almost sympathetic. No reviling word fell. Men and 
women would hush heedless children when those let drop 
remarks that might be offensive to the strangers. Many 
of the prisoners were weary, footsore, half starved. One 
Serbian cast an avid glance at a loaf of bread in a wo- 
man's arms, and she instantly sprang towards him and 
pressed him to take it, saying, in her rough Viennese 
dialect: ''Arms Hascherl, gel d'bist hungrigf" (Poor 
fellow, you're hungry, I suppose). And the crowd 
thought it but right for her to perform the little Samari- 
tan act, although one elderly man mumbled: "Well, I 
bet ours fare no better." 

It took a long, long time to make this happy-go-lucky 
people of Austria (and still more that of Hungary) 
understand the seriousness of the whole situation created 
by the war. For months and months they continued i6 
live about in their accustomed way. The news in the 
papers might try to bring the grim truth home to them. 
But so long as death and danger and want did not touch 
them personally, all that news seemed a long way off and 
to be no concern of theirs. In Vienna and Budapest very 
especially the gay and carefree life had apparently not 
changed. Not alone the luxurious coffee houses along 
the main thoroughfares were lit up nights as brilliantly 
as ever, and the laughter one heard in passing was as 
boisterous, but every other place of recreation was also 
thronged. The war was still discussed with abandon. 
Censorship had only just begun to be felt. The end — an 



AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY DURINa THE WAR 193 

end crowned with laurels, of course — seemed yet nigh. 
The joys of the table were still freely indulged in, and 
no one had even the remotest suspicion that Austria and 
Hungary, countries wallowing from times immemorial 
in the lap of food plenitude, would before long feel the 
pinch of hunger. 

It was not till early in 1915, when the war had already 
gone on for seven or eight months, that, stroke upon 
stroke, a realisation of ''what they were up against" 
began dimly to be perceived. Those were the awful days 
of the Carpathian campaign, when Austrians and Hun- 
garians (and the Germans of General von Linsingen, that 
had come to their assistance) froze to death by the thou- 
sands in the passes and skirting woods of that range of 
mountains, often holding positions five thousand feet 
high, with the snow house-deep and the mercury below 
the zero point. Those were the days when the "Russian 
peril" for the first time came to be adjudged at its true 
perspective, when the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaye- 
vitch was thundering with his legions along the whole 
line that leads from the Galician passes down to Moravia 
and Vienna at one end and to the Hungarian plain and 
Budapest on the other, and when that gaunt commander 
was sacrificing within one single week 80,000 of his men 
in the reckless attempt to break the thin phalanx of its 
defenders. These were also the days when the spectre 
of want first began to stalk through the land ; when the 
"bread-card" was issued; when the Austrian govern- 
ment (just as improvident as the people it rules over) 
suddenly discovered that the visible supply of foodstuffs 
had shrunk to a minimum, and that nothing more could 
be had for love or money till the next harvest. And 
finally, these were the days when Przemysl fell. 

Nothing characterises the shiftlessness and lack of 



194 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

provision of the Austrian government more strikingly 
than the circumstances attendant on the surrender of 
that virgin stronghold. The enormous strategic impor- 
tance of Przemysl (pr. Pshemyshl) had all along been 
pointed out in the press of the monarchy, and so had the 
'impossibility" of taking it. The heroic defence, the 
enormous slaughter among the Russian assailants under 
the Bulgarian Dimitrieff, 80,000 of his army being lost 
during the first siege, these things had all been dwelt on 
with confident pride. And then like a thunderbolt from 
the blue came one evening the news of the fall of this 
impregnable fortress. Nobody was prepared for it. At 
the little news store where I bought my evening papers, 
despair reigned. I went home and told my Austrian 
landlady. Her son, a young lieutenant, staying with her 
on his way to recovery from incipient consumption 
brought on by the hardships of the Russian campaign, 
was at first stunned. Then he broke out, with a sort of 
quiet fatalism: ''Well, that is the way with us here." 
He meant the Austrian lack of efficiency and the inability 
to attend to things with thoroughness. For Przemysl 
had been compelled to surrender because of lack of pro- 
visions, forced by hunger, and more than 100,000 men 
went into Russian captivity. Some 6,000 guns were lost. 
The Russians now held 72 per cent, of Galicia. Next day 
and the days following the Austro-Hungarian war min- 
ister published in the papers many details of the disaster, 
making an attempt to exculpate himself ; trying to make 
it appear that the event had been inevitable. But I had 
to remember the exclamation of the young lieutenant: 
"Well, that is the way with us here." It explained 
everything. 

Throughout this fearful winter of 1914-15, very severe 
and dreary, with coal and other fuel scarce and high in 



AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY DURING THE WAR 195 

price, and with an infant mortality in Vienna and other 
large cities unparalleled for centuries, — ^throughout this 
winter, I say, the terrible crop of the Carpathian cam- 
paign referred to had been ripening. That is, scores of 
thousands of men with frozen limbs had been brought in 
to Vienna in trainload after trainload. The whole city 
was one vast sickhouse. Everything had been turned 
into an infirmary. Beside the regular hospitals and the 
so-called "reserve** hospitals established by the war de- 
partment, of which latter at one time there were fifty-odd, 
Red Cross funds had been used to create hospitals, dis- 
pensaries, sanatoriums. The Order of St. John, a 
knightly organisation of which an archduke was the 
''chief hospitaller," had also raised funds among the 
wealthy and maintained by now a number of houses for 
the reception of suffering officers. All the school build- 
ings, wholly or in part, were made over into hospitals. 
Even the huge University building was given over in two 
of its wings to the care of wounded soldiers. Nay, the 
very Parliament Building, a structure of rare architec- 
tural beauty in the classical taste, became a hospital. 
Some 75,000 wounded or sick soldiers were thus housed 
at one time in Vienna alone. 

And then at last, slowly, unwillingly almost, early 
spring arrived. The sun once more began to struggle 
out from behind those leaden cloud banks, and sprigs of 
green peeped out shyly. And as the days grew longer 
and warmer, for the first time one could measure the 
dread horror of it all. For now these houses to which, 
purposely always in the middle of the night, these 
myriads of maimed fighters had been taken throughout 
the weary months of winter, commenced to disgorge, so as 
to let the sun and the gentle spring air do what surgeons 
and drugs had not been able to do. The great Ring- 



196 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

strasse of Vienna, for a distance of three miles running 
in a semi-circle around the inner city, saw multitude upon 
multitude of these victims of a relentless war. There 
they came, hobbling on crutches, the head tied up into a 
formless mass under a turban of gauze and linen band- 
ages, arms in sling, feet a bulky package, pale, weak, yet 
trembling with joy at breathing once again in the open. 
And there they sat by the thousand on the benches placed 
under the quadruple row of tall shade trees, and looked 
up with grateful eyes at all the petting and sympathy, 
all the handfuls of cigars and cigarettes pressed and 
urged on them. These were some of the victims of the 
Carpathian campaign. Many more thousands lay out 
there, where the sun now licked away the snow from their 
mouldering bodies in the narrow defiles and dense brush 
about the mountain passes. And the Vienna people knew 
it: these men here on the benches were they who had 
stood between them and perdition, between them and 
chaos. Often it was touching to observe how some dainty 
miss would stop and put forth her little hand to shake 
the hairy paw of one of these tough warriors, and chat 
and make much of him. But some of the sights were not 
for such as she. I recall one case particularly. It was 
that of two men, simple private soldiers, labourers prob- 
ably in their Styrian village home, comrades both who 
had served in the same company of the same regiment. 
And the same fate, too, had befallen them. For while 
on sentry duty one intensely cold night they had, each of 
them, frozen legs and hands. Those two sturdy men 
were reduced to nothing but trunks — the limbs had been 
amputated. Now they were taking their first ''walk" 
outside the hospital, on artificial limbs furnished at gov- 
ernment expense. They were able to use them haltingly 
as yet, but practice makes perfect, and by now they are 



AUSTEIA-HUNGARY DURINa THE WAR 197 

probably getting along tolerably at home. The Vienna 
people are very kind-hearted, very compassionate, and 
the little scene I witnessed, with these two as central 
figures, demonstrated that anew. For when the two 
friends had reached the corner of Karntner Strasse, 
which is to Vienna about what lower Fifth Ave. is to 
New York, two ladies spied them from their carriage, 
halted, ran towards them and began to question. Then 
each tore off the cap of one of the men and first cast a 
bank bill in it, next stood at that mnch frequented corner 
and begged. Within five minutes both caps were brimful 
of money — ^mostly paper, with some silver coins mingled. 
It was a treat to watch the two crippled soldiers mean- 
while, their broad bucolic faces red with excitement and 
wreathed in smiles. Probably they had never seen so 
much money in their lives before as they now held in 
their caps. A stout pohceman then crossed over, and in 
that coaxing voice they have in Vienna, said to the pair : 
''Now you've got enough — I'll call a cab and send you 
home. You're capitalists now and can afford to ride." 
And so it was done, and the two rode through a crowd 
of smiling humanity back to their hospital. 

"Ses, they were decidedly slow in Vienna and through- 
out Austria-Hungary in providing for a long war. This 
was true in every respect. So, too, in finding substitutes 
for the men sent to the trenches to fight. Women to the 
fore ! That at last became the watchword. The process 
was a very gradual one. At first youths had been pro- 
moted into the vacant places of their elders. When the 
age limit both in Austria and Hungary was extended 
either way, so that the men were called in, in special con- 
tingents, from 17 to 50, there was no help for it — the 
women had to replace the men. In a large way that was 
done on the street railroad lines (which in Vienna and 



198 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIEE 

Budapest are run by the municipality), and tlie con- 
ductresses and motor women were put into uniforms 
similar to that of the men, and there was considerable 
amusement at their expense for a month or so. By that 
time the public were used to the sight. But as men of 
active age became more and more rare in the hinterland, 
women (and, so far as that could be done, boys up to 17) 
practically began to monopolise employments of every 
kind that had formerly been regarded as distinctly re- 
served for men. Even the butcher trade, that of the 
drivers, blacksmiths, horseshoers, bricklayers, street 
paviors, etc., fell largely into the hands of women, and it 
was found that, while certain drawbacks had to be ac- 
cepted as unavoidable, on the whole they fitted such 
arduous positions much better than did the lads of less 
than seventeen. In the country, too, they did the best 
they could, although to safeguard and facilitate the heavy 
harvest labours large numbers of soldiers were given 
leave during the three seasons thus far passed in war. 
In Hungary, in 1916, about 200,000 men all told were thus 
sent home to help their overburdened womankind gather 
in the crops. 

No doubt many humorous situations arose out of this 
state of affairs. In the cities you could see women act- 
ing as cab drivers who possessed that feminine fear of 
the horse that animates some of the sex. And such 
drivers would then walk demurely at the head of the 
** fiery steed," leading him by the bridle, while the pas- 
senger inside, who was paying good money for this feeble 
imitation of a drive, would storm and scold in vain. The 
most heroic thing, however, I saw woman do in Vienna 
was her turning butcher. Not only the carving and saw- 
ing and cutting-up of the carcass, be it remembered, but 
the killing, the slaughtering, of the animal as well. Yet 



AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY DUEING THE WAE 199 

what were these women to do? With the enormous prices 
paid for meat (up to $3 the pound), the pork or beef 
butcher business was a very remunerative one, despite 
the fancy sums paid the grower in the country. Hus- 
bands, sons and fathers off to the war, it was either shut 
up shop and lose all the trade and custom, or else to 
buckle to and do the job as well as she knew how. Thus 
I watched with some amusement the plight of a pork 
butcher's wife whom my wife had patronised all along. 
She did a rushing business, and my wife told me later 
that the good woman had confided to her: the first pig 
was the worst — every other after that came easy. It 
seems that she and her daughter (a girl of 18) who up to 
that awful moment had sold pork certainly, but with rings 
on their fingers and with nice white hands, were at a loss 
how to cut up the murdered porker, and had finally done 
it at a guess. But, she said, her customers were never 
the wiser. They had not noticed. So they gained con- 
fidence in themselves, and soon mastered the mysteries 
of porkicide. 

But it was by no means only in these lower walks of 
life that women in the Dual Monarchy came, saw and con- 
quered. No. They have done equally as well — perhaps 
better — in nearly all the learned professions and in re- 
sponsible positions. They have been admitted, it is true, 
for a number of years past, in the universities of Aus- 
tria and Hungary, but were debarred from most places 
for which study had fitted them theoretically. Only the 
practice of medicine and teaching in all its branches were 
allowed them, while they were shut out of the legal pro- 
fession and out of the priesthood as well. Since the war 
most of these barriers have fallen. They may not as yet 
be appointed to the bench, but they can practise in a 
number of courts, may become administrators of estates. 



200 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

and at present they fill the greater number of the minor 
legal office positions. At the public schools where for- 
merly woman teachers were frowned upon, except in 
girls' schools, they now form the majority of the force. 
Employment in banks, wholesale houses, etc., has largely 
passed into the hands of women as well. How this thing 
is going to work out in the end is matter of conjecture, of 
course. At the front, in the trenches, this has been dis- 
cussed thoroughly. Nobody, however^ can tell how the 
readjustment will be made after peace. So far as opin- 
ions expressed in the press goes employers are on the 
whole satisfied with the services of their new female 
clerks, saleswomen, bookkeepers, etc., and even point out 
a preference for them. Part of that, however, may be 
owing to the fact that they have to pay women less in 
wages, salaries or commissions than they did to the men. 
One thing seems certain, the war'has roused the people 
of Austria-Hungary. They are more virile, more ener- 
getic, more enterprising than they formerly were. Habits 
of indolence have had to subside. Self-indulgence, per- 
haps the besetting sin of the people before the war, has 
had to give way to self-sacrifice, to altruism in all its 
varied phases. Just to instance one point, it is truly 
amazing that that country, economically retarded and 
poor in capital, has nevertheless raised the enormous 
sums through its own unaided strength which this war 
has swallowed. Similarly, the voluntary contributions 
to all sorts of charities begotten by the war have been 
not only very large but spontaneous. I do not recall a 
single occasion when the public was asked in vain to re- 
spond to some new call upon its generosity. An admi- 
rable feature, for example, in this line were the days 
when, almost wholly managed by school children, boys 
and girls, of the ages between 12 and 16, voluntary collec- 



AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY DURING THE WAR 201 

tions were taken up for the needs of the Red Cross — 
now for the Blind Fund, now for the Flower Fund, now 
for the hospitals, again for some other commendable 
feature. These children attended to these duties 
promptly, at all sorts of weather, even when snow was 
flying, and I never heard of any shirking or of any dis- 
honesty. The locked boxes were delivered untampered 
with at the end of a day of arduous toil (usually Satur- 
days and Sundays, or during vacation time), and in that 
way many hundreds of thousands passed through their 
hands in Vienna alone. 

On the other hand, the natural craving for pleasure 
and distraction was by no means in abeyance throughout 
the war. The theatres, the opera, the '* movies" were 
not only going all the time, but were even reaping a 
golden harvest. And while in Berlin the attractions most 
relished seem to have been farces, etc., in Vienna the 
serious drama and standard operas were preferred, al- 
though the Vienna and Budapest type of operette was 
also well patronised. Dancing, however, which at first 
went on unrestrained and of which diversion the Aus- 
trian and Hungarian people are proverbially fond, as 
well as certain other more noisy and objectionable amuse- 
ments were, after the lapse of eight months of war, re- 
stricted and at last entirely prohibited. Public opinion 
sanctioned this, the press pointing out that it was a dic- 
tate of humanity and decency to forego such pleasures 
in the days of the "grosses Sterhen" {i.e., ''huge dy- 
ing") at the front, and when so many thousands of poor 
women went about in their weeds. 

One other feature brought about by the war deserves 
mention, namely, the rise in the standard of wages and 
the fearful increase in youthful criminality. The rise in 
wages was, of course, chiefly owing to the rise in prices 



202 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

generally, and the latter was due to the growing scarcity 
of foodstuffs and certain industrial rawstuffs, such as 
cotton, wool, leather, fats, etc. But the increase in youth- 
ful criminality had a different inception, for it grew 
mainly out of the temporary or permanent absence of 
the paternal authority. The same social symptom, due 
to the same cause, has been remarked in the other bellig- 
erent countries, including France and England. Youths 
from 14 up were, however, not alone deprived of the 
guidance of their fathers or elder brothers, but they also, 
because of the difficulty of obtaining competent labour, 
were enabled to earn much more money than before the 
war. This led them by easy stages to dissipation and 
thence to crime. This has been remarked throughout 
the monarchy. Statistics on these points, so far as avail- 
able, tell a regrettable tale in this connection. In Vienna, 
for instance, for the year 1915-16 the increase in crimes 
and serious misdemeanours committed by persons below 
18 rose to 340 per cent, of what it had been in 1913-14. 
Returns from elsewhere are not much different. And 
the government has so far proved practically powerless. 
The police forces are everywhere much smaller than 
during normal times, since a large percentage of the 
men had to join the army. Courts and other civil au- 
thorities, too, have a plethora of additional labour to 
perform. The whole matter is a very serious problem 
and will grow steadily worse until peace reigns once 
more, and even after. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE FOOD QUESTIO]Sr AND SOME OTHERS 

General points about supply and demand — Sharp cleavage between 
Austria and Hungary — ^War slowly resulted in organisation of 
state, provincial, municipal and rural measures intended to enforce 
systematic production, purchase and equable distribution of chief 
articles of consumption — ^Meat, milk, bread, butter, potatoes, etc, 
also some manf aetured indispensables as leather, cloth, cotton goods 
■ — Hunger demonstrations — What the late Premier, Count Stuergkh, 
said about them — Effects of semi-starvation in Austria — Hungarian 
conditions far better — The Vienna burgomaster in times of stress 
— Enormous difficulties of the whole problem — Surrogates and sub- 
stitutes — Nettle fibre vs. cotton — Nitrates from air — Sandals for 
the poor — How Austria-Hungary raised forty billions of the sinews 
of war — Some drastic illustrations and statistics. 

In the piping days of peace, which now, alas ! seem so 
remote, it was held a want of tact, of taste, of manners in 
civilised countries to discuss the joys of the table too 
intimately, too lengthily. But now! Note the contrast. 
Since the hour when the stringency of the British block- 
ade first was brought home to the shocked feeling of the 
peoples of the Central Powers, when the stern spectre of 
famine first began to haunt the civilian multitudes dwell- 
ing otherwise in security, perhaps hundreds of miles be- 
hind the embattled fronts, the dread of ultimate starva- 
tion would not down. It sat, a fearsome guest, a gaunt 
monitor, as at Belshazzar's feast, down at table. In the 
midst of momentary plenty it cast a damp on the spirits. 
It was an ever-present, looming, intangible, all-pervasive 
peril from which, despite brave words, there seemed no 

203 



204 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

escape. With pithy, grappling force and truth did one 
of the British cabinet members in Parliament liken this 
dimly approaching ghost to the Spanish garrote. In 
speaking this orator seized his own throat, clutched it 
tight, squeezed it harder, while the Commons hung on 
his words, and mumbled : * * Thus it will be, gentlemen — 
like a neckcloth of fate — shutting off breath, throttling, 
shutting off life itself." 

He spoke but too truly. His gruesome simile seems 
being verified ; at best the process of throttling has taken 
longer than he surmised. 

For the past eighteen months and more no topic has 
been discussed so generally, with such feverish interest, 
and absorbing zeal throughout the length and breadth 
of Austria-Hungary (precisely, too, the case in Ger- 
many) as has been the food problem. 

And is it any wonder? Little by little, at first month 
by month, next week by week, then day by day, almost 
hour by hour, the lurking issue has become more sharply 
defined, its outlines more clearly apprehended ; fear of it 
has crept into hearts at first undaunted. Government 
regulations came tumbling one upon the other. They 
could not exorcise the palsy. Always everything re- 
solved itself into the simple question: But will there be 
enough? 

And that question could not be evaded. Much, amaz- 
ingly much, has been done by science, both in Austria- 
Hungary and Germany, to solve the riddle of how to 
make a great deal of little. Under the sharp spur of 
grim necessity rigid economy in foodstuffs became the 
chief civic virtue ; privation became a sacrificial donation 
on the altar of patriotism; the latter turned a pitiless 
Juggernaut mowing down hecatombs of the poor and 
defenceless, the weak, the young, the ailing and the aged. 



THE FOOD QUESTION AND SOME OTHERS 205 

But tlie nide question still remained, staring everybody 
in the face: Will there be enough'? 

By all sorts of scientific legerdemain it was attempted 
to befog and befool the crude minds of the multitude, to 
make them believe, contrary to the evidence of their 
senses, that black was white, and that the decreasing 
rations of food doled out to them really sufficed to sus- 
tain their strength and preserve their lives. All sorts 
of panaceas were vaunted. Inventors turned up of a 
sudden proving infallibly, with a huge display of print- 
er's ink and flaring posters, with darksome chemical for- 
mulas beyond cavil, by testimonials from the highest 
living authorities, proving past doubt that certain cakes 
of yeast preparation easily would take the place of meat 
and eggs, not alone in nourishing qualities, but also in 
toothsomeness, in keeping the vigour of body intact, — and 
all for a mere trifle. When Holland and Germany still 
sent North Sea fish to Austria, it was represented to be 
in all respects the equivalent of beef or pork. And some 
believed it. But after a while the fish itself no longer 
came. All manner of substitutes cropped up, belauded 
and introduced on great authority — among them, for ex- 
ample, alleged gelatine and glutinous articles of diet, 
several of them subsequently discovered to be fraudu- 
lent, others derived from processes and substances dis- 
gusting and repulsive to human stomachs ; in some cases 
forbidden by the authorities. Other surrogates for ani- 
mal fats (of which the lack began to play havoc with the 
health and strength of the working classes at an early 
stage) were shown to be very inferior as nutrients and 
yielding enormous returns to the manufacturers and 
dealers, in some instances 600 to 800 per cent. 

Yet with it all the old question persisted : Will there, 
after all, be enough to go around? 



206 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

This question of food is the most interesting one in 
Austria-Hungary. For it concerns every person there 
every day. The war has brought the nations of the 
Central Powers back to first principles. It has reduced 
life once more to its prime essential : a sufficiency of 
nourishment. It is like a revival of primordial instincts, 
like the age of the cave man back again. True, the fight- 
ing losses touch them all, in a way, but even they, dread- 
ful as they are, come into immediate personal contact 
only once in a while and with many persons not at all. 
Almost everybody has sons or brothers or husbands or 
fathers there, at the front, far away, fighting for their 
homes and their countries. But thousands of them have 
gone through these years of danger unscathed, and even 
when wounded or killed it is but one blow, one shock in 
a long while. But this food danger and food urgency 
hammer and knock at every door three times a day, 
and it demands instant attention, instant solution, even 
if but a momentary one. It is the supreme question. It 
is not only a stomach question, but one of the soul, of 
its endurance and fitness to cope with the portentous 
future as well. 

And for this reason, too, it is perfectly natural that 
the newspapers throughout the monarchy, in all its poly- 
glot vocabulary, ring the daily changes on it. There is 
an immense variety in the topic, as one soon discovers, 
albeit at first flush it would seem so concretely simple a 
one. For besides the mere items of shifting prices, of 
discovering dealers with possibly some condiments or 
articles out of the common, the permanent task of finding 
places with a sufficient stock of edibles, and so on, there 
is the kaleidoscopic daily game of watching the latest 
government or municipal orders, decrees, publication of 
fines or jail sentences (for swindling customers, for hid- 



THE FOOD QUESTION AND SOME OTHERS 207 

ing- or hoarding, for refusing to sell, for purloining or 
manipulating or counterfeiting ''food cards"; for over- 
charging or adulterating), the new directions to be ob- 
served in purchasing or in obtaining "food cards." All 
this keeps interest at white-heat. It never is allowed to 
flag. There are forever later and latest developments. 
Then there is the never-failing subject of abusing the 
government for some new real or fancied blunder in food 
distribution. That in itself is a broad topic. It serves 
as a safety-valve, no doubt. And certainly in every part 
of the monarchy, in Austria as well as in Hungary, there 
have been, at various times, committed some glaring mis- 
takes. Here as well as in Germany it has been the large 
centres of population, especially the industrial ones, that 
have suffered most that way. This country ought to 
learn betimes from the errors committed there. 

Food experts have been figuring on the amount of 
nourishment absolutely required for growing children 
and adults to keep in health and vigour. And while their 
findings in different countries, even in different parts of 
the same country, have varied greatly, there appears to 
be a practical unanimity as to the amount below which 
it is dangerous to go in this respect. For the soldier in 
active service three pounds of varied edibles per diem 
seemed about the unit. For civilians performing hard 
labour two pounds and a half is considered the thing. 
For women, middle-aged men and others moderately ex- 
ercised two pounds or a little less will do. For children 
between twelve and sixteen rather more than two pounds 
is requisite. All this being understood that albuminous 
foodstuffs must form between twenty-five and thirty-five 
per cent, of the whole. 

But if that be so, then all Austria-Hungary and Ger- 
many have been underfed ever since the fall of 1914. 



208 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

Measured by this test, by the bed rock of the essentials 
of animal life, so to speak, both countries have now been 
undergoing the slow process of starvation for more than 
thirty months. Their vitality must have been sapped 
incredibly. And indeed this appears truly to be the case. 
I will point this out more in detail further below. 

The food problem is the crucial one. On its solution 
chiefly depends Austria-Hungary's ability to bear the 
brunt of this war to the bitter end. To judge this ques- 
tion with a fair degree of accuracy, a number of factors 
must be taken into account. I will go into them seriatim. 

One of them certainly is the influence of famine — or, 
as far as Hungary goes, of at least scarcity and high 
prices of foodstuffs — on the general health. I don't know 
what technically can be designated as famine. But when 
even in Hungary a chicken costs five dollars and a goose 
twenty, and when in Vienna a city employe, a married 
man, confessed to me that for the past two years he had 
not even tasted meat, I think it may be fairly asserted 
that a condition closely bordering on famine really does 
exist. When I left Vienna the bakers' shops were 
besieged, day after day, by hundreds of women, children 
and aged men, waiting hours for their small rations of 
bread — half a pound per day each person. And such 
bread! The fighting men at the front are better off. 
But in the '^ hinterland " the civilian population suffers 
more or less severely from an insufficiency of nourishing 
food. And it is precisely the feeble and sickly, the babies, 
women, children and the aged who are injured the most. 
It will be in the end a fearful illustration of the Darwin- 
ian survival of the fittest. As witness the official sta- 
tistics of Budapest, the Hungarian capital, for the twelve- 
month ending August 31, 1916. They show that, chiefly 
owing to lack of milk, infant mortality there has been 



THE FOOD QUESTION AND SOME OTHERS 209 

more than treble what it was in 1914. The authentic 
figures for Vienna indicate a similar state. For the em- 
pire as a whole and for the entire civilian population, re- 
gardless of age, the figures are not now available, but 
from all sorts of more or less reliable reports, such as 
those of medical associations and of benevolent societies, 
it would seem that the number of deaths due to lack of 
nourishment, wholly or in part, must be appalling. Sev- 
eral physicians of my acquaintance in Vienna assured me 
that this long-continued malnutrition has wrought havoc 
with the health and stamina in the proletarian districts of 
the city, leading to permanent injury to the constitution 
in most cases, and to downright slow starvation in others. 

For a variety of reasons, some of them obvious, the 
governments of Austria and of Hungary do not choose 
to publish the facts as to this matter. Indeed, it is offi- 
cially claimed that the death-rate among adults (leaving 
out the men at the front) is lower than formerly. Among 
the leading Austrian traits is patience, incredible pa- 
tience, as a fiery patriotism is an Hungarian one. Yet 
with my own eyes I have seen a number of famine riots 
in Vienna. 

One of them started in a socialist quarter of the city 
(Hernals), and under the leadership of a score of deter- 
mined men and women the dense throng, numbering sev- 
eral thousands, attempted to cleave its way through the 
cordon of police to the abode of the late emperor, Schoen- 
brunn, until dispersed by force. On another occasion, 
late in September last, a large procession, mostly women 
and children, famine-crazed and nearly out of their wits, 
tried to fight its way to the municipal building. Their 
intention was to make a public and striking demonstra- 
tion in order to compel the mayor to provide and equally 
distribute sufficient food for the needy. This crowd like- 



210 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

wise came from one of the leading socialist sections of 
the town, from Ottakring, and many of the women form- 
ing part of it looked haggard, desperate and starving. 
Some had pallid, puny babies clinging to their wasted 
bosoms. This multitude also was beaten back by the 
vigilant police. The scene impressed me powerfully. It 
reminded one of the stricken quarters of Paris in the 
year 1789, and of the grim forerunners of the great Revo- 
lution. These women with streaming hair, too, seemed to 
prefer a merciful bullet to a lingering death by hunger. 

With the awful spectacle yet fresh in my mind I ob- 
tained, on the afternoon of the same day, an interview 
with Count Stuergkh, then the premier of Austria, whom 
I interpellated on the above occurrence. All he would 
say, in answer to my questions, was, Yes, the police had 
already made a report on the matter ; that it was trivial 
and hardly worthy of note ; an unavoidable incident in a 
war of such magnitude. Nil nisi bonum. The man is 
dead now, and his callous reply was buried with him. 
And I do not care to repeat and amplify the accusations 
popularly brought against him and that had very likely 
done much to stir dissatisfaction with his course and to 
arm his slayer with the deadly weapon. Suffice it to say 
that he was either unable or unwilling, or both, to handle 
successfully the problem of a rigidly just and adequate 
distribution of the necessaries of life. 

Dr. Weiskirchner, the mayor of Vienna, on the other 
hand, did all that was humanly possible to relieve dis- 
tress caused by insufficiency of food. He personally 
exerted himself to the utmost of his power. Trustworthy 
and efficient agents of his purchased flour in Hungary, 
Rumania and Moravia; potatoes, peas, beans, chickens 
and geese in Galicia; coal in Prussian Silesia and Bo- 
hemia. And he saw to it, overcoming every obstacle, that 



THE FOOD QUESTION AND SOME OTHERS 211 

this fuel and those provisions reached the city even in 
the dead of winter, and that they were sold to the indi- 
gent population at cost price. In this way he expended 
31,000,000 Austrian crowns of the city's money, which 
has been slowly refunded. Dr. Barczy, mayor of Buda- 
pest, later imitated the example thus set. 

Food conditions vary greatly in different parts of the 
monarchy. They are vastly better in Hungary than in 
Austria, Hungary being largely an agricultural country, 
whereas in Austria industrial interests predominate. 
Normally, Austria imports about one-third of her pro- 
visions, largely from Hungary, the remainder from Ser- 
via and Rumania; from the latter cereals and petro- 
leum, from the former pigs, sheep and cattle. The harvest 
of 1916 and that of 1917 will tell a different story. The 
1916 crop was less than middling. A portion, owing to 
unfavourable weather prevailing during harvest time, as 
well as to insufficient help, spoiled on the ground. It was 
especially deficient in breadstuffs, whereas in hay, in 
cattle feed, in barley and oats it was above the average. 
As Hungary now needs her produce for her own popu- 
lation, relatively little finds its way into Austria, even at 
extravagant prices. Importation from Hungary of cer- 
tain classes of food (wheat, flour, pork, cattle,) has al- 
most entirely ceased. Until spring of 1916, cheese, 
condensed milk, potatoes, and herrings from Holland, 
butter from Denmark, condensed milk, cheese, honey 
from Switzerland, and canned fish from Norway, though 
in steadily diminishing bulk and at very steep prices, 
could be procured. All that has stopped long ago. 

If the foodstuffs of both Hungary and Austria were 
put into a joint pool, so to speak, and the people of the 
whole monarchy fed out of it evenly, there would be no 
serious difficulty. It would mean that everybody would 



212 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

receive about 70 per cent, of the normal supply of peace 
days. But Hungary is a sovereign state, just as much 
as is Austria, and Hungarians do not propose to stint 
themselves to please the people of the other half of the 
Dual Monarchy. How much of this strictly selfish atti- 
tude may be due to the undeniable fact that there is, 
ordinarily speaking, little love lost even to-day between 
Hungarians (still sore from the treatment accorded their 
country and nation up to 1867, and smarting from mu- 
tual recriminations, jealousies and economic distrust since 
that time) and Austrians, it is hard to say. That it plays, 
however, quite a figure in these times of stress cannot 
well be doubted. The sentiment of dislike still prevail- 
ing both in Hungary and Austria, is so universal that 
it had to be reckoned with even at the front. Hungarians 
are loth to serve under Austrian leadership and officers, 
and vice versa; neither has the mingling of Austrians 
and Hungarians within the same regiments at all an- 
swered. Each part fought loyally and bravely enough 
for the same ends and within the same army; but near 
proximity of one to the other could not be endured and 
invariably led to trouble and relaxed discipline. In short, 
the relations subsisting between the two countries mak- 
ing up the Dual Monarchy are peculiar, to say the least, 
and though fighting for the very political existence of 
each unit, and of the two jointly, even this common mortal 
danger has not drawn Hungary to Austria or Austria 
to Hungary. At best they have each striven for a con- 
tinuance of the modus vivendi that has held good for a 
generation or so, and the slow progress of the pending 
Ausgleich negotiations that are intended to put, every 
ten years, the two halves on a slightly modified footing 
towards each other, shows again that, psychologically 



THE FOOD QUESTION AND SOME OTHERS 213 

considered, they have not been drawn closer together 
since 1914. 

At any rate, consistent with the fact that Hungary is 
and means to remain an independent economic entity, 
war or no war, Austria has not received much help from 
Hungary in the matter of food supply. And hence, Aus- 
tria goes short in her rations — alarmingly short. 

During September and October, 1916, the poor in 
Vienna had to go without potatoes ; and bread, their only 
other staple, was sold in but insufficient bulk. The bread 
in October consisted of 20 per cent, of rye, 20 per cent, of 
wheat, and 30 per cent, each of oats and barley. It was 
not very palatable, but it was decidedly better than the 
bread of a year before, which contained 75 per cent, of 
maize, a cereal which Vienna bakers were not accustomed 
to, and which, therefore, they did not know what to do 
with and how to handle. Thus they turned out a bread 
that was bitter of taste, heavy, of unpleasant odour, and 
hard to digest. Stomach and intestinal complaints at 
that period increased 140 per cent, in Vienna and vicinity. 

Prices soared, of course. By the autumn of 1916 meat 
of better quality ranged from 12 to 17 crowns per kilo, or 
about $1.10 to $1.60 the pound. Bacon, ham, sausage, 
even higher, and very hard to obtain at any price ; butter, 
$1 to $1.20 a pound ; milk, 8 cents per quart, as fixed by 
the government, but very little of it ; cheeses, according 
to grade, 80 cents to $1.40 a pound. But bread and pota- 
toes had legal maximum prices. Bread then sold at 9 
cents the pound, potatoes at from 5 to 10 cents the pound, 
according to kind. These figures have since enhanced an 
average of about 25 to 30 per cent. 

Mistakes in handling the food situation have been 
made, of course, by the governments of both Austria and 
Hungary. Aside from a failure to issue and enforce 



214 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIEE 

workable regulations insuring a fair distribution of the 
existing chief foodstuffs, at tolerable prices, the worst sin 
of omission consisted probably in not preventing the 
hoarding of provisions by the well-to-do classes. These, 
indeed, with few exceptions, have hidden away immense 
stores of eatables not easily perishable, such as smoked, 
dried and pickled meats and fish, bacon, ham, sausages, 
also flour, macaroni, rice, peas, millet, beans, lentils, 
pulse, poppy seed, sugar, coffee, tea, cocoa, condensed 
milk, cheese, butter, lard, canned goods, etc. I venture 
to say that many, many million pounds of these various 
comestibles have been secreted, while the poor in only 
too many instances are in dire need of food of any kind. 
It is because of this prime longing for more edibles, too, 
that even the underworld has shifted its operations. 
There have been and are more thefts of food being com- 
mitted throughout the Austria of to-day than of any 
other kind of movable property. So thoroughly has this 
private piling-up of eatables been done in Austria — and, 
though in smaller degree, in Hungary as well — that many 
articles have completely disappeared from the open mar- 
ket, such as macaroni, noodles, rice, lentils, peas, sardines 
and other preserved fish. 

The appointment of a ''food dictator" in each of the 
two halves of the monarchy, though long delayed, was at 
last accomplished, largely on the same plan and with 
similarly comprehensive powers as those conferred on 
the food dictator in Germany. Unfortunately this step 
came too late to achieve much in the face of the enormous 
difficulties in the way. Conditions seem well-nigh hope- 
less, unless the above hoards are seized and confiscated 
for the common good. For though the conquest of Ru- 
mania has been exploited beforehand as a means of 
bringing to the Central Powers colossal quantities of 



THE FOOD QUESTION AND SOME OTHERS 215 

cereals, this turned out a delusion, after all. The Ru- 
manian provisions were found to be inconsiderable when 
expected to supply the requirements of two hungry na- 
tions aggregating 120 millions in population. They were 
but a drop in the bucket. In Rumania the same sort 
of tactics had been pursued which the Russians had 
brought into play in the fall of 1915, when falling back in 
Galicia and Russian Poland. They then destroyed or 
removed all the foodstuffs, cattle, grain, etc., and even 
systematically set fire to the fields where the com was 
ripening. 

To strike a rough sort of balance, it might be said that 
the Austrian people, in their vast majority, are now sub- 
sisting on about half the amount of food they habitually 
consumed before the war. They must also go without 
many accustomed articles of diet. This is probably 
rather overestimating the quantity than the reverse. For 
the last harvest showed unmistakably that even if the 
soil had furnished a crop more propitious than it was, 
there were not enough hands to garner it. The monarchy 
having hitherto clung to rather antiquated and primitive 
methods of agriculture, there is nothing like the same 
number of reapers, threshing machines, etc., in the coun- 
try as there is in Germany, and the absence of millions 
of sturdy men at the front means much more. In all 
likelihood this defect will prove fatal the coming harvest 
time. 

The deficient diet now adhered to for 30 months and 
become during the last twelve months much more inten- 
sified than at first, may be beneficial for a time and with 
some restricted classes of the population. The Spartan 
fare this war has imposed upon the rotund Viennese 
burgher, for instance — for pleasure-loving Vienna has 
always been noted for overfeeding — ^may be a blessing in 



216 AUSTEIA-HUNaARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

disguise to the few. But only for a time is tliis true. 
The limit has long ago been exceeded. And with that 
far more numerous part of the population whose means 
at no time admitted of such a surfeit, the case is much 
more serious. At the front, of course, the matter is dif- 
ferent. There, in fact, innumerable soldiers — in civil 
life mountaineers, peasants, field labourers, herdsmen, 
woodcutters and timbermen, etc. — are still receiving 
much more meat and rich food than they have been accus- 
tomed to, and more than is good for them, since they had 
fared all their lives on mush and gruel, milk, eggs and 
bread. But their supplies will not help the half-starving 
civilians far away. 

In connection with the food problem I will mention that 
during several visits which I paid to large prison and 
detention camps, careful investigation proved that the 
charge repeatedly made in the foreign press, that these 
wards were purposely underfed, is groundless. The 
prisoners looked to me, with relatively few exceptions, 
healthy and strong. To be sure, they nearly all com- 
plained of insufficient food; but Austria makes reply to 
that by saying that they receive as much as or more food 
than the labouring civilians of her own population, and 
that she cannot afford to treat her enemies better than 
her own people. 

Intimately allied to the food shortage is also the short- 
age or entire absence of industrial products hitherto con- 
sidered indispensable in civilised countries, and the im- 
portation of which first greatly diminished and then 
wholly ceased in consequence of the increasing strin- 
gency of the British blockade and the steps taken by 
England to prevent neutral neighbouring countries, 
chiefly Scandinavia and Holland, from supplying the de- 
ficiency. This fact, it is well known, plays also an im- 



THE FOOD QUESTION AND SOME OTHERS 217 

portant part in the tottering economic life of the Central 
Powers, and owing to the less efficient industrialism of 
Austria-Hungary the consequences have been, quite early 
in the titanic struggle, much more deleterious there than 
in Germany. To offset this partially at least much has 
been done in the monarchy. 

One of the most interesting attempts to supply a sub- 
stitute for the real article is the systematic utilisation 
of the nettle fibre in lieu of cotton. The last years before 
the war Austria-Hungary and Germany imported on an 
annual average over one hundred million dollars' worth 
of American cotton alone. Cotton mills in Austria 
rapidly increased in number and output. They largely 
supplied the Balkan with cotton goods of their make. 
Importation ceased. Soon there was lack of raw cotton. 

It was an Austrian scientific expert, Dr. Gottfried 
Richter of Vienna, who after painstaking experiments 
dating back some fifteen years, in the fall of 1914 at last 
hit upon a method of decortation by means of which the 
fibre of the ordinary middle-European nettle plant, the 
stinging-nettle so-called, for the first time has been made 
commercially available for spinning and weaving cloths 
of every kind not only equal, but in several respects 
actually superior, to cotton products. His invention was 
for some time theoretically and practically tested from 
every point of view, and found to answer all reasonable 
requirements. 

These tests began in the fall of 1914 and have lasted, 
even after the invention began to be fructified, until the 
present hour. Quite a number of other chemists had 
laboured for a long time before to solve the same problem 
of making the nettle fibre — of which before the advent 
of cotton, centuries ago, certain fine and costly cloths 
had been spun, especially for ladies' kerchiefs — com- 



218 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIEE 

mercially available. At one time, late in the 80 's, Bis- 
marck had sought to encourage this by offering large 
government premiums in Germany. The one great 
drawback to the nettle fibre, its excess of vegetable glue, 
could not be overcome, except at relatively high cost and 
by tedious and repeated processes of maceration. But 
the Richter process, as* above stated, did at last obviate 
this great difficulty. 

Without going into all the details, suffice it to say that 
since the spring of 1915 nettle fibre has been obtained on 
a large scale, both in Austria-Hungary and in Germany, 
and has been utilised for the manufacture of both coarse 
and fine yarns, out of which cambric, sheetings, cloths of 
various grades, and other stuffs have been made. 

To do this successfully two things had to precede it: 
Namely, the extensive growing, harvesting and preparing 
of the raw nettle fibre ; and, secondly, the adapting of all 
the machinery used in mills and factories where hitherto 
but cotton yarns had been spun. The first of these, the 
obtaining of raw material in sufficient quantities, was not 
as hard as the second. The weed itself, the nettle, grows 
in enormous masses on waste and unoccupied soil, both 
in Germany and Austria-Hungary. During 1916 vast 
tracts and waste lands, aggregating hundreds of thou- 
sands of acres, have been specially utilised for nettle 
growing in the three countries. Much of the rocky and 
otherwise sterile land of Austria particularly is splen- 
didly adapted to the cultivation of the nettle, and under 
cultivation the plant itself improves and its raw fibre 
obtains a higher value for textile purposes. Cheap la- 
bour, mainly that of peasant women and children, is also 
in abundance. 

The adapting of the various machinery to its novel 
material proved not so easy. There were failures at 



THE FOOD QUESTION AND SOME OTHERS 219 

first, but this difficulty also adjusted itself after awMle, 
and in the spring of 1915 the first cotton mills in Bohe- 
mia, chiefly in Reichenbach and the outlying districts, 
were turning out finished product. At that time this was 
only done on a small scale. The whole thing was as yet in 
the experimental stage. But during the past year the 
manufacture of standard commodities has been done on 
quite an extensive scale. Exact figures are not at my 
disposal, but, as a rough estimate from the data in my 
possession, I should say that the output of nettle stuffs 
of various grades totaling some twenty-six million yards 
and of a selling value of about $3,450,000, has been turned 
out by the Austrian mills alone. These are, in this 
matter, ahead of Germany, and, of course, also of Hun- 
gary. No reliable figures can be quoted from either of 
the last named two countries as yet. But there, too, the 
matter has now passed beyond the merely experimental. 

Early last fall, during October, contracts were made, 
both on the part of the governments and by private con- 
cerns, for the enormous extension of nettle raising, har- 
vesting, preparation and spinning of the fibre during the 
season of 1917. This applies to both empires. It may 
be expected that in the fall of the current year enough 
of the nettle fibre will be worked up into textiles of every 
grade to go far towards supplying at least the most 
pressing needs of the two countries. 

This is especially true as regards the requirements 
of the army. I myself saw, four months ago, strong, 
durable and rather handsome nettle cloth worked up into 
uniforms for the Austrian and Hungarian soldiers. It 
seemed a mixture, in about equal proportions, of nettle 
fibre and wool. It did not shrink, was warm and very 
serviceable. The nettle fibre gave it a peculiar silky 
gloss. 



220 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

Tlie number of spinning mills adapting themselves to 
this new textile fibre is steadily increasing. It seems 
certain that this whole evolution is not a mere temporary 
thing, but that account will have to be taken of it for 
the time after the war. 

Rubber is another commodity much needed. All the 
"synthetic" rubbers produced in chemical laboratories, 
both in Austria-Hungary and Germany, turned out a 
delusion and a snare. Every bit of manufactured rubber 
within the monarchy was seized for army requirements 
long ago. Each pound of hard, brittle, used rubber was 
"renovated" chemically. Hospital needs are, perhaps, 
the greatest as to rubber. For autos new tires were 
made of elastic wire springs, but they are inferior. 

The scarcity of leather is another drawback. Sole 
leather is no longer procurable, save for army uses. 
Children rich and poor have taken to wearing sandals, all 
of wood but the straps. And thus it is that from dawn 
till night, in every street and lane and alley of Austrian 
and Hungarian towns, you will hear the chorus: clip- 
clap, clip-clap! made by myriads of clattering, active, 
restless children. Adults wear felt slippers or have their 
soles renewed by plastering them over with thin strips of 
old leather cut off from derelict footwear. 

Nitrogen from the air — another eminently important 
chemical process, and one which in Germany has scored 
triumphs during the past two years. In Austria the proc- 
ess was introduced by experts sent from Berlin, and 
some success has been attained, but far behind Ger- 
many's agricultural industry. Indeed, fertiliser of any 
kind has not been in much use, in Austria-Hungary, up 
to the war. 

Since the war began I have made the circuit of Aus- 
tria-Hungary twice, inquiring and observing. From per- 



THE FOOD QUESTION AND SOME OTHERS 221 

sonal study I may say that industry, trade and general 
business are, so far as data are obtainable, in a sur- 
prisingly flourishing state. What are known as "war 
industries" partake, of course, most largely of this pros- 
perity, short-lived and inherently fallacious as it may be. 
Hundreds of new millionaire contractors and dealers in 
army supplies have sprung up. 

But the manner in which Austria-Hungary has raised 
the sinews of war by her own unaided strength compels 
admiration. Notoriously a land not abounding in liquid 
capital, the Hungarian half indeed greatly dependent on 
foreign investors, she has issued six war loans, nearly 
altogether subscribed for by her own population and 
totalling some forty billions of Austrian crowns. With 
that, the number of individual subscribers, running as 
they do high into the millions, and the many small 
amounts, show that the middle and even the labouring 
classes vie with the wealthier ones in patriotism and 
confidence in an ultimate favourable peace. 

In round numbers, Austria-Hungary has up to the 
present put some five millions and a half of men into 
the field. That means in excess of ten per cent, of the 
total population. But it must be remembered that from 
the available men of physical fitness and military age 
very large deductions had to be made. Take Galicia, 
for instance. That province with its eight millions is. 
the most populous in Austria. In the wake of the Rus- 
sian invasion, at the very outset of the war, and until the 
fall of 1915, at the orders of the Grand Duke Nicholas 
Nicholayevitch, the generalissimo, between 350,000 and 
400,000 males of Galicia were sent off from the occupied 
districts of that province into the interior of Russia, 
many of them as far as Siberia or the Volga districts, 
with the view of diminishing Austria-Hungary's military 



222 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

resources. To that extent, therefore, the armies of the 
monarchy were weakened. Again, in South Tyrol and 
along the Adriatic coast line, long before hostilities were 
actually declared by Italy, a considerable percentage of 
the men of Italian stock, won over by the unremitting 
Italian propaganda, had gone over the border and joined 
the foe. 

Thus it happens that while in Germany 45 years is 
the age limit of the men sent to the front, in Austria it 
was 50 quite early in the struggle, and for some months 
this limit was raised to 55 years, in Hungary at least. 
For a considerable time, youths from 17 upwards, if 
strong and fit enough, have been enrolled in the ranks 
of the fighters. Not alone that, however. The physical 
standard for the men and boys called to arms has steadily 
been lowered, until to-day even those with incipient tuber- 
culosis or otherwise showing grave defects are included. 

That under these circumstances the men of Austria- 
Hungary are fighting as well as they undoubtedly do, is 
one of the marvels of this unprecedented war, especially 
if one considers the enormous hardships they have to 
undergo all along in such sections of the front as the 
Tyrolese mountain ranges, the Carpathians, and part of 
the foremost line towards Russia. 

But, after all, it is the food question mainly which will 
decide the war as a whole. 

I recall, with a strange clutching at my heart, the last 
time I sat at an Austrian family table. On my right was 
a demure little lady of five, with curly head and big, 
innocent eyes, and she laughed and prattled as only 
children of pleasure-loving, joyous Vienna can, I think. 
The host, too, was gay and debonair, as he toasted 
''America" in the fiery grape juice of Grinzing. But all 



THE FOOD QUESTION AND SOME OTHERS 223 

of a sudden a shadow seemed to fall athwart the table, 
and everybody became silent. It was the haunting fear 
of Austria-Hungary, the fear of ultimate starvation, that 
had stalked in and frozen us all. 



CHAPTEE Xiy 

EOONOMIO TROUBLES AND THEIR REMEDY 

Astounding backwardness in the material development of Austria-Hun- 
gary — Agricultural methods, with the exception of few provinces, 
quite primitive — Little use of labour-saving devices — Small imports 
in fertiliser — Average annual yield, according to ofi&eial war statis- 
tics, for the whole monarchy only slightly over half that per acre 
in Germany — And this despite a more fertile soil — Hungary es- 
pecially behind — Bohemia again leads — Austrian and Hungarian in- 
dustry largely the product of German enterprise and management 
— Finances altogether in Jewish hands — Foreign capital invested 
— French and Belgian loans and investments before the war — Rail- 
roads now mainly under state ownership or control — Some excep- 
tions — Railroads do not pay — The question of water power — Few 
captains of industry — Capital locked up in land — Outlook under 
more progressive conditions. 

Travelling to and fro in Austria-Hungary and asking 
the wliy and wherefore of things, the foreign observer 
is struck by the material retrogression of the country 
when viewed as a whole. The decisive test in this re- 
spect must be the state of agriculture. In Hungary, 
counting in the rural day labourers, almost 76 per cent, 
of the total population are engaged in occupations con- 
nected with cultivation of the soil. In the other half, 
in Austria, but 48 per cent, are agriculturally employed. 
For the entire Dual Monarchy, taking due account of the 
population in both halves, the figure, therefore, comes to 
62 per cent. True, there are large tracts barren and al- 
most wholly unproductive. This is the case, for instance^ 

224 



ECONOMIC TEOUBLES AND THEIR REMEDY 225 

in tlie so-called Karst or Carso lands, the steep moun- 
tain ridges fronting Italy in the region of Carinthia, 
Carniola, Gradiska and Gorz (or Gorizia, as the Italians 
have baptised it) ; it also applies to most of Dalmatia, to 
the whole of Croatia, to portions of the Tyrol, of Styria, 
to the more elevated sections of the Transylvanian Al- 
pine range, and even to districts of Upper Austria and 
the Carpathians. The Karst, for example, is one of the 
most forbidding areas to be found anywhere in Europe. 
Its arid, scarred plateaus and valleys, its abrupt declivi- 
ties and serrated mountains are sterile and unproductive 
in exceptional degree. On its bare rocks not even weeds 
will grow. And the Slovene population dwelling there 
in an inhospitable climate, exposed to keen northern 
winds, although perhaps the most abstemious race under 
the canopy, are but able to wring enough from this un- 
grateful, infertile ground to keep them from starvation. 
And this, too, they have been enabled to accomplish only 
by a system which, I believe, is unique in the world. I 
refer to the dolinen — ^hollows of restricted size which the 
forces of nature^ — mountain torrents, snow and rain, have 
gradually, in the course of many centuries, scooped 
out on these bleak plateaus, in spots more or less shel- 
tered from the rough and desiccating blasts that sweep in 
from the north and east during most of the year. Pain- 
fully digging up earth clinging here and there to tree- 
studded chasms, often miles and miles away from their 
miserable homes, these sturdy Slovene peasants, with 
their wives and children have carried such crumbs of 
earth to the dolinen in baskets, sacks and vessels, even 
in aprons and bedsheets, and emptied them there, weight- 
ing this earth down against the blustering wind with 
stones. Then they fenced in these bits of soil, watering, 
tending them, watching them with unremitting care, and 



226 AUSTRIA-HUNGAKY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

planting seeds, sowing these strips with infinite patience, 
until they bore scant fruit of every kind. A doline, com- 
prising an acre or two of such soil, is a marvel. Their 
owner is a man of consequence in his commune. He is 
regarded as relatively wealthy. The possessor of sev- 
eral such dolinen is a Croesus, universally envied. The 
produce gotten out of such usually oval or circle-shaped 
hollows is varied. From Indian corn and oats, barley 
and millet, it ranges to melons and all sorts of vegetables 
which, packed snug and tight, the wife and daughters 
will then carry, again on their backs, down to the larger 
villages and towns, quite a distance away, to sell in 
summer and fall. Dalmatia, grand in scenery, is likewise 
niggardly in productive soil. Mostly it is a narrow green 
fringe on the Adriatic coast, with boldly rising bare 
mountains behind. Its population, wholly and pro- 
nouncedly Slav in all but the few ports and coast towns 
like Cattaro, Ragusa, Spalato (where there is an Italian 
element numbering altogether not exceeding 25,000), and 
even on the hundreds of islands that lie dreaming in im- 
perishable beauty on the bosom of the purple sea, live in 
dire poverty. In their half-oriental and wholly pictur- 
esque costume they may be seen wandering about the 
more prosperous provinces of the monarchy, as pedlars, 
knife-grinders, etc., by the hundreds — tall, sinewy fel- 
lows, typical mountaineers with their hawk-like faces. 
Istria, again, all but a small portion by the seaside, is 
arid and poor. And up in the Alpine regions of Transyl- 
vania also very little is growing that man may use. 

But on the other hand, Austria-Hungary judged as a 
whole is decidedly more fertile than Germany. Over in 
the Teutonic empire there are no such marvellous gar- 
den spots as, for instance, the Alfold of the Hungarian 
lowlands. That Alfold is a region — ^the most extensive 



ECONOMIC TROUBLES AND THEIR REMEDY 227 

of its kind in the whole of Europe — ^which alone equals 
half of Germany in intrinsic productiveness. And Bo- 
hemia is a country of great natural fertility. There are 
other portions of the monarchy — ^most of Mora\da, for 
example, which is a district where wheat and every kind 
of fruit, dairy products and vegetables flourish and 
where the peasantry are well-to-do and even rich, and 
Silesia, the province of Lower Austria and a good part 
of Styria and Salzburg — ^which are only second to the 
wonderful Alfold in yielding. Withal the climate of 
Austria-Hungary is pleasant and healthful, moderate in 
summer and winter. In its southern half it is nearly as 
warm as northern Italy. But it is true that the climatic 
changes are more sudden than in Germany and that, on 
the whole, the rainfall is neither as regular nor as plenti- 
ful. There are exceptions. Salzburg, a little duchy 
famous for its salines and scenery, bears the reputation 
of rivalling the Scottish Highlands in its abundance of 
foggy, rainy weather. But speaking generally, Austria- 
Hungary is certainly dryer than Germany. However, 
with its actual advantages of soil and climate the Dual 
Monarchy ought to produce, acre for acre, at least as 
much as its neighbour to the northwest. 

But what do we find? Instead of that we find that 
the average annual yield per acre of cultivated soil is, 
for the whole monarchy, but about 58 per cent, that of 
Germany. For Hungary, an agricultural country par 
excellence, the relative proportion is even much less, 
namely, but 52 ; for Austria proper it rises to about 63. 
And the cause of this startling phenomenon? Nothing 
but the primitive methods still in vogue in most of 
Austria-Hungary. Not alone is the use of labour-saving 
machinery still very small (there being, to speak with 
exactness, but one-tenth as many motor ploughs, drillers. 



228 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

threshers, reapers and other devices in the whole mon- 
archy as there are in Germany), but the whole science 
of agriculture is on a much lower plane. More particu- 
larly the rotation of crops, the manner of ploughing, the 
preventives against damage by vermin, and (the main 
item!) the amount of periodical enriching of the ex- 
hausted soil by means of artificial fertilisers are be- 
hind the times and wholly inadequate. Official figures 
published during the war by the governments of Austria 
and Hungary called attention to these facts. In the mat- 
ter of a supply of guano, potash, phosphates, Hungary 
is the greatest sinner. That country has never imported 
more than about 50,000 tons of these commodities during 
any one year. Estates which ought to have yielded about 
25 bushels of cereals per acre did not yield more than 
eight. Besides the traditional farm dungheap in front 
of the peasant's hut no other manure is used, or even 
known of. The soil of the Alfold, although apparently 
inexhaustible, is being impoverished year after year. So 
much so that the crops of Hungary, with a rapidly in- 
creasing population, are steadily diminishing. But a few 
years ago she was able to export an average of 41 per 
cent, of her whole crop to Austria and Germany. This 
has dwindled to-day to but 33. Extensive agriculture in 
Hungary and, in a less pronounced way, in Austria, too, 
has also something to do with it. In Hungary a score 
or so of the noble historical families and Magnates (the 
Palffys, Esterhazys, Zichys, Serenyis, etc.) own one-sixth 
of the soil ; but they produce only about one-fifteenth of 
the crop. In Bohemia a handful of the wealthiest aris- 
tocrats, with the Princes Schwarzenberg at their head, 
are possessors of seven per cent, of the whole kingdom, 
and they, too, harvest but about two per cent, of the 
total yield. It is similar elsewhere. Too much is left 



ECONOMIC TROUBLES AND THEIR REMEDY 229 

uncultivated, mostly for hunting purposes, while in other 
districts the peasants have to sell out and emigrate be- 
cause of lacking land. This is even true of such provinces 
in the heart of Austria as Lower and Upper Austria, and 
not only of Galicia or Croatia. The government, the par- 
liaments, have done little, if anything, to counteract these 
evil effects of an unequal distribution of the arable land. 
In Styria, a province of unrivalled scenic attractions, the 
population of which is more than two-thirds of Teuton 
strain, there has been intense dissatisfaction for years 
over this problem of land tenure. Thousands of her 
'^forest peasantry," as sturdy and patriotic stock as 
there is anywhere, have been dispossessed by capitalistic 
land speculators who have crowded them out. These 
peasants afterwards, with little money in their pockets, 
went to swell the socialist proletariat in the cities, or else 
emigrated to Canada or the United States, a serious loss 
to their native country. 

On the face of it, too, it is singular that both meats 
and cereals, as well as dairy products like butter and 
cheese, even before the war, years and years ago, have 
been higher in price than in more densely peopled and 
less agricultural Germany. But some of the points cited 
above go far to explain the curious fact. Even in Hun- 
gary itself, where seven persons out of every ten are 
tillers of the soil, prices of the necessaries of life rule 
higher. And while much discussion is going on all the 
while in the press of the monarchy, no serious steps to im- 
prove these essentially unhealthy conditions have been 
taken or even proposed in either half. There are, truth 
to tell, certain outlying provinces, such as Galicia and 
Bosnia-Hercegovina, where living is still cheap and the 
products of the country command but very low prices. 
But that again is owing to abnormal conditions (amongst 



230 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

which, distance from markets and scarcity of railroads 
and other ready means of communication must be classed 
first), and can hardly be termed a benefit to the country 
as a whole. 

To what an extent a sober spirit of progress, coupled 
with steady industry, may promote husbandry in all its 
aspects, can best be seen in Bohemia. That little coun- 
try, some sixty years ago, was still deep in mediaevalism 
regarding tillage of its soil. Now it produces propor- 
tionately the most. Its average per acre is highest in 
the whole monarchy. Thoroughly modem and sensible 
methods have been adopted. With a climate perceptibly 
less clement than in provinces to the south and with soil 
of only moderate fertility, it has outstripped them all. 
And this applies both to the Czech and the Teutonic part 
of it. If a few of her princely land-owners could be made 
to disgorge some hundreds of thousands of their acres, 
Bohemia would be still better off in this respect. 

"While on this topic another point deserves mention. 
That is the excessive number of holidays observed in the 
Dual Monarchy. There is but one country in Europe 
that excels her — Russia. But in Austria, for instance, 
the holidays kept and enjoined by Church and State rise 
to 85 per annum. This perennial merrymaking and ab- 
stention from labour suits, no doubt, the temper of a 
happy-go-lucky population. But its economic effects, in 
an age when rivalry and competition among the various 
nations are keen and likely to become keener, are nothing 
short of deplorable. Two holidays usually falling to- 
gether, or else towards the close of the week, a third one 
is added by many roystering persons of both sexes, and 
the outcome is not only a grave loss in earnings all 
around, but also too often in diligence and morals. Yet 
the Church not only encourages this state of things, but 



ECONOMIC TEOUBLES AND THEIR REMEDY 231 

praises it as conducive to true piety. The socialist par- 
ties also are against a reduction of these days of leisure 
— too often they are days of debauchery as well — taking 
the ground that it is good to get all the fun possible out 
of life, and that there can never be enough of that, while 
the State silently lends its weight to this view of things. 

Now it will have been noticed that these drawbacks 
to a healthy and progressive state of agriculture through- 
out the Dual Monarchy are not inherent; that is, they 
are nearly all remediable. And an enlightened and ener- 
getic government, consistently supported by the two par- 
liaments, could soon retrieve things. But that presup- 
poses once more that the race strife, which hitherto has 
pre-empted most of the political energy of the land, will 
happily be ended. 

As to the industry and the manufactures of Austria- 
Hungary, it is not too much to say that they are largely 
owing their inception and their present relative pros- 
perity to German incentive — that is, German from the 
neighbouring empire. Technically in particular both Aus- 
tria and Hungary rest largely on outside help from Ger- 
many. Many of the German secret processes of manu- 
facture have been introduced there and are in successful 
use. The whole chemical and dye industry is of German 
creation, and would collapse if that support were with- 
drawn. The cloth mills of Bohemia, the cotton mills 
everywhere, the iron and steel works of Styria, Bohemia 
and Carinthia, are mostly German-managed. So are, 
with few exceptions, the munitions works. The electric 
power industry (still in its infancy, however) in Styria, 
Carniola, Carinthia, depends on Germany proficiency. 
Many of the technical directors everywhere are Germans 
from the empire — so-called Reichsdeutsche, as the Aus- 
trians term them — or of German extraction. It is only 



232 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

their aid, their efficiency, which enable Austria to hold her 
own in these lines. Most of the mines are owned by the 
government and operated according to antiquated meth- 
ods ; still, they are yielding a handsome return and are, to 
that extent, reducing taxation. But thorough geological 
surveys have never been made; there is no doubt that 
many deposits of rich ore are still awaiting exploitation. 
This applies still more to Hungary whose mineral wealth 
has barely been scratched, especially in Transylvania, 
Croatia and also in Dalmatia. Austria owns and works 
one of the most productive quicksilver mines in Idria, but 
unquestionably there are others still hidden from view. 
As to the rather forced and artificial industry of Hungary 
I have spoken elsewhere. However, with competent tech- 
nical advice something may probably be made of it in 
certain lines, such as pottery, cotton cloths, etc. Both as 
to Austria and Hungary, vast sums of German capital are 
invested. However, in Hungary this is of rather recent 
date. Formerly it was French, Belgian, Dutch and Eng- 
lish capital that was chiefly attracted to Hungary. This 
is true even as to Austria. All told the amount of native 
capital is but one-fifth that of Germany for Austria and 
but one-tenth for Hungary. Paris used to be the main 
money market for Hungary. Gas companies were for- 
merly English in the Dual Monarchy — in fact, the Brit- 
ish had a virtual monopoly in that line and in the metal 
industry, at least the technical portion of it, until ousted 
by German persistency. Owing in part to the heavy 
drain on her liquid resources made by Russia, as well as 
to the fact that Hungary formed part of the Dreibund, 
the French money market was closed to her. That be- 
came very evident during the five years preceding the 
war when Hungary vainly attempted to place various 
loans for internal improvements in Paris. There was a 



ECONOMIC TEOUBLES AND THEIR REMEDY 233 

financial boycott declared against Hungary by France. 
Thus, Hungary, too, was forced to turn to Germany as a 
financial backer. For Austria the same state of things 
antedated that of Hungary by a full decade or more. 

Both Austria and Hungary are relatively poor in cap- 
ital. In either country Germany has very largely super- 
seded France and other western countries possessed of 
large surplus seeking profitable investment. Still, of 
French, British, Belgian, Dutch, American and other for- 
eign capital (non-German) there are still tremendous 
amounts engaged in the Habsburg monarchy. This be- 
came statistically ascertainable early in the war, when the 
western belligerent nations resorted very largely to se- 
questration methods. In retaliating to some extent stock 
had to be taken, and it was then discovered that some- 
thing like six billions of Austrian crowns (or normally, 
about $1,200,000,000) of such funds coming from nation- 
als of enemy countries were sunk in Austrian or Hun- 
garian enterprises, some of them very remunerative and 
bearing high interest indeed. The war will, of course, 
change all this permanently, and it is difficult to see at 
this writing whom the monarchy can turn to hereafter in 
its absolute need of capital, if not to Germany. Belgium, 
too, is a large creditor, especially of Hungary. 

The finances of the Dual Monarchy are altogether in 
Jewish hands. It must be owned that, on the whole, these 
bankers and financiers of Hebrew extraction have evinced 
a loyal and patriotic spirit all through the war. Though, 
of course, it must not be forgotten that they could not 
very well help themselves. While intrinsically quite as 
sound, the whole banking system of Austria, her financial 
status, rests and leans on Germany. The connection is 
very strong and intimate. The largest Austro-Hungarian 
private institution, the Wiener Bankverein, is more than 



234 AUSTRIA-HUNGABY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

half German. The huge government concern, the Austro- 
Hungarian Bank, is closely modelled after the Reichs- 
bank in Berlin, though it possesses some special features 
of its own, due to its dual character. Most of the Aus- 
trian and Hungarian industrial papers, shares, values, 
securities, are quoted and dealt in, outside of Vienna 
and Budapest, only in Berlin and Frankfort. In its trade, 
its industrial life, in its technical development, Austria 
is strongly dependent on Germany, on German enterprise, 
German capital, German science, German patents, Ger- 
man example, and German guidance. 

This is just a hasty and incomplete synopsis of actual 
economic conditions. After the war these conditions will 
of necessity be greatly enhanced. It is not possible to 
say at present, even approximately, what Austria-Hun- 
gary's financial status will be when peace is declared once 
more, because such a forecast depends on too many fac- 
tors at present not to be determined. 

The railroad question is also one calling for some ref- 
erence. Originally nearly all railroads, both in Austria 
and Hungary, were built with foreign money, mostly Brit- 
ish and French. In an aside it may be stated that, as in 
contrast with Germany, but little American capital has 
been invested in the Dual Monarchy. Following, how- 
ever, the example set by Germany, the governments of 
Austria as well as of Hungary have for a number of years 
past, as part of a settled policy, purchased these foreign- 
built roads, out of hand or else their controlling interest. 
And this system has now proceeded far enough to make 
to-day the larger number of railways government-owned. 
In Hungary indeed the state is the proprietor of all the 
main lines, while the smaller ones are still largely private- 
owned. In Hungary, too, the zone tariff has been intro- 
duced, partly as a measure to advance industrial develop- 



ECONOMIC TROUBLES AND THEIR REMEDY 235 

ment, partly for other obvious reasons, and this system 
has benefited the population in several respects. In 
Austria, however, where some of the chief lines remain 
in the hands of private companies, the zone tariff was not 
found applicable, largely because of the mountainous 
character of the country as a whole, and the very vary- 
ing expense of maintenance, as well as because of the 
original great difference in the cost of construction. 
State-owned lines have to compete with private-owned 
ones in Austria at many points. One of them, for in- 
stance, is on the distance from Trieste to Vienna, where 
the Sudbahn (which is largely built with French and Brit- 
ish capital) must vie with the Staatsbahn. 

And owing in large measure to the high cost of build- 
ing in the first place (blasting through rock and moun- 
tain passes, great number of tunnels, frequent damage 
by avalanche or mountain streams, etc.) and to the 
equally high cost of maintaining the roads, they do not 
pay. If these roads brought a clear four per cent, they 
could square accounts. But they only produce, lumping 
them together, some two per cent., thus creating quite a 
large annual deficiency in the national budget. And it is 
difficult to see how that can be mended in the future. It is 
similar in Hungary in this respect, although the de- 
ficiency there is not so considerable. The reasons there 
are the low zone tariff, the insufficient amount of freight, 
and the relatively smaller density of population. 

The question of water power was touched on be- 
fore. To the traveller speeding through the mountain 
scenery of Carniola, Styria, the Carpathians, Transylva- 
nia and Carinthia it seems difficult to account for the 
great waste of economic forces evident there. Looking 
out of one^s car window at the churning, rapid head- 
waters of the Save, the Drave, and other limpid torrents, 



236 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

growing in the lowlands into mighty rivers, one is struck 
with this fact. Elsewhere it is the same. Relatively little 
of Austria's and Hungary's abundance of water power 
has yet been utilised for industrial purposes. What little 
has been done is due to German technicians from the em- 
pire. Doubtless these things will be altered before long. 
It may not astonish the reader from the foregoing to 
be told that industry on the whole is still at a little ad- 
vanced stage. It cannot be denied that much of the 
products of Austro-Hungarian loom, work bench and 
forge is quite artistic and charming; that there often is 
displayed fine taste and originality of conception. Many 
of the manufactures — such as glassware, china and table- 
ware, leather goods, furniture and articles of domestic 
decoration, as well as the cloths of Bohemia, etc. — ^bear a 
stamp of their own and .are appreciated by the connois- 
seur. But admitting all that, the fact is still true that 
the whole methods in vogue in its industry are antiquated 
and do not admit of those processes of standardising and 
of rendering the volume of output so large and at the 
same time the selling prices so cheap as to readily admit 
of competing with more wide-awake nations. And this, 
it must be remembered, in spite of the fact that wages are 
very low (considerably lower than in Germany, about as 
low as in Belgium) and other conditions, such as abun- 
dance of fuel, of ores, of water power, of non-hampering 
legislation, favourable to the development of industry on 
a large scale. And it ought not to be omitted in this list 
of favourable points that the labour itself, at least in 
those parts of the monarchy where industry is the pre- 
vailing occupation — such as the northern and western 
districts of Bohemia, Lower Austria, Moravia, etc. — is 
to be easily had of all grades, from the highly intelligent, 



ECONOMIC TROUBLES AND THEIR REMEDY 237 

thoroughly skilled and more exacting to the less intel- 
ligent and poorly paid type. 

Yet for all that a thoroughly modern industry, based 
on exact science, so to speak, one studying and adjust- 
ing nicely the most profitable sources of supply, measur- 
ing precisely all the items that go to make up the final 
product, and doing it on a^ large basis and on calculations 
that are backed up by unlimited capital, such an industry 
does not exist in either Austria or Hungary; nor is it 
likely to come into existence in the near future. Visiting 
some of the world-famed places of manufacture in that 
wonderfully productive corner of Bohemia the heart of 
which is Reichenberg, a restricted territory where smoke 
and flame are breathed with the air and the hum and clat- 
ter never ebb away, I was struck with the narrow horizon 
of the men in charge of things. There are some excep- 
tions, that's true. The Skoda Works in Pilsen, for in- 
stance, where they turn out those formidable 42-centime- 
tre howitzers that laid Liege and Antwerp low, is such an 
exception. A Czech, Baron Skoda, is the brain of the 
concern, and a number of able German engineers are 
the sub-brains. There everything is done on an enormous 
scale — grounds covered, trip hammers of a hundred tons 
apiece, 30,000 men toiling and sweating for good pay; 
and capital galore. And enormous profits; lately one 
of the Krupps became a partner. But that is one of the 
very few exceptions. The air of Austria or Hungary is 
not conducive to the growth of these modem captains of 
industry that elsewhere have left their mark. 

And the trend of those elements in both halves of 
the monarchy that have capital to spare is not, on the 
whole, in the direction of industrial investments. They 
do not like to speculate. ''War brides" there were, too, 
at the Vienna bourse, with declared dividends of hun- 



238 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

dreds per cent. But the dance around tlie golden calf 
there and elsewhere within the monarchy was performed 
almost exclusively by the sons of those we are told first 
performed it — the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 
By very few others. The tendency of the vast majority 
belonging to the titled or moneyed classes in the mon- 
archy is towards investment in land, or else safe, low 
interest-bearing papers. That, too, accounts for much 
of the success of the six war loans so far raised. Of 
course, with the prices paid for agricultural products, 
land is a safe investment. Curiously enough, even the 
Jews of Austria and Hungary share, very many of them, 
this predilection. Any number of them have become the 
owners of estates, and more and more land passes into 
their hands. So much so that a great deal of the dis- 
tinctly and violently anti-Semitic feeling in the whole 
country (a feeling which has become a declared party 
principle of the Christian Socialist and other political 
parties), but more particularly amongst the rural popu- 
lation, is directly due to it. The list of great Hebrew 
land-owners, most of them created barons by the crown, 
is constantly increasing. The head of the Vienna branch 
of the Rothschilds, for example, owns estates and farms 
covering territory the size of a duchy. 

The outlook for a more prosperous economic condition 
in Austria-Hungary is, therefore, not very bright. At 
least not for the immediate future. For one thing, a 
great deal more liquid capital is required than there 
seems any near prospect of. Again, the genius of its 
polyglot population, while much diversified in other re- 
spects, does not seem to lie (with some notable excep- 
tions that have been spoken of in these pages) in the 
direction of exceptional material progress. And lastly, 
the great men that the monarchy as a whole has produced 



ECONOMIC TROUBLES AND THEIR REMEDY 239 

have achieved triumphs in other walks, especially in the 
arts and in music, or else have been forced to look for 
success elsewhere, in other lands where their efforts 
found more ready appreciation. 



CHAPTER XV 

AID TO NEEDY AND INJURED 

Very mixed system — Red Cross organisation kept going by driblets — 
Voluntary contributions in small sums — Austria's nobility derived 
from many strains, yet patriotic in supporting the Red Cross — 
Some examples — Archdukes and duchesses at the head as patrons — 
Specialties — Archduchess Marie Theresa taking care of the "War 
Blind" — Archduchess Marie Valerie, daughter of the late Emperor, 
organising support of widows and orphans — The Knights of St. 
John — A huge army of crippled soldiers — Artificial limbs — Joseph 
Leiter and his American models — Eiselsberg, the surgeon wizard in 
Vienna — Daring new methods introduced in his clinics and sani- 
tariums — Kinoplastic treatment — Artificial magnetic hands — A 
bullet through the head, parts of the brains gone, yet entirely re- 
covered — American surgeons at Austrian and Hungarian hospitals 
■ — Were made very welcome — In Hungary very deficient methods — 
Pension legislation required in Austria-Hungary — Some scenes at 
the surgical hospitals. 

Nothing could illustrate more strikingly the enormous 
difference in national wealth between Austria-Hungary 
and the United States than the methods pursued in either 
country to provide necessary funds for the Red Cross, 
in fact, for aiding all the needy and injured of this long 
and terrible war. Here within a week, with scarcely any 
previous systematised agitation set afoot, really quite 
impromptu, a popular Red Cross fund far exceeding in 
amount the $100,000,000 first called for was raised. And 
this, too, when the palpable need of such an enormous 
sum had not yet been felt by the *'man in the street," 

240 



AID TO NEEDY AND INJURED 241 

at a time when the masses of the American people had 
barely a theoretical knowledge of the fact that the conn- 
try was at war. The millions simply poured in to be 
in readiness against the days to come when they will be 
urgently required, without any outside pressure, merely 
in obedience to the instinct urging hearts and hands to 
open wide for the relief of distress in the future. And 
now look at Austria-Hungary. "Why, so far as I have 
been able to discover; i.e., so far as reports have been 
printed and published over there, the sum of $100,000,000 
— or anything near it — ^has not been raised there for Red 
Cross work during the entire three years of war. And 
yet that is not because the people of Austria-Hungary 
are too parsimonious or too callous to give of their sub- 
stance for the relief of war's victims. Far from it! 
They are compassionate by nature, and to give for a 
good purpose does not come hard to them. Scarcely 
anywhere else is the mendicant treated so tolerantly as 
there. To give alms is looked upon as a prime religious 
duty. A tale of woe at once draws tears from their eyes. 
No, it is because the people of Austria-Hungary (taken in 
the mass) are pitiably poor in capital when compared 
with the people of the United States, and because the 
other equally well-founded claims of their country on 
their little substance was perpetually exhausting them 
that the Red Cross of Austria (and still more the Red 
Cross of Hungary) found it so enormously difficult to 
gather in the money needed to keep it going. And while 
in Hungary at least the national parliament was in ses- 
sion and thus enabled to vote, off and on, appropria- 
tions for this or similar purposes, even that was not the 
case in Austria. The Red Cross of Austria, in other 
words, throughout the stress of wartime, has been sup- 
ported by none other than voluntary contributions. And 



242 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

for me, a neutral onlooker, it was a wonderful and a 
touching thing to see how it was done. 

First, of course, were the nobility of Austria in con- 
tributing both money and active help. Now, the Aus- 
trian nobility is, in a polyglot country of numerous races, 
one deriving from many strains. As their names alone 
would show even the uninitiated. This weird nobility 
is descended from almost every European nationality. 
From a printed call for aid that appeared in Vienna to 
replenish the emptied coffers of the Red Cross (for about 
the tenth time) I pick the following representative names 
of members of the Austrian aristocracy: Rohan 
(French descent), Bucquoy (Belgian), Pallavicini (Ital- 
ian), Hoyos and Sylva (Spanish), Daffonsa (Portugese), 
Lacy and Taaffe (Irish), Blome (Dutch), Razumovsky 
(Russian), Hormuzaki (Rumanian), Dumba (Macedo- 
nian), Baltazzi (Greek), Abrahamovicz (Russian). But 
there are many other names, just as prominent as the 
above, showing English, Scottish, Welsh, Danish, Swed- 
ish, Flemish, even Turkish and Arabian origin. Well, 
this strange conglomerate which, in the ordinary sense, 
certainly is quite innocent of patriotism, did on the whole 
very well during this war in supplying sinews for it, both 
for the six successive war loans and for the Red Cross 
and other war charities. In one way and another they 
must have *' chipped in" many millions to the fund. Aris- 
tide Baltazzi (famous in international racing circles) once 
gave a clear $500,000 to one of the minor charities spe- 
cially appealing to him. The Prince of Arenberg (Swiss, 
Dutch, French) came down with $200,000 at one swoop. 
Of the Prince of Liechtenstein it is said that he gave all 
told considerably over a million. But then he is one of 
the wealthiest, really a sovereign in his own right (though 
the country he lords it over is but a tiny strip), and 



AID TO NEEDY AND INJUEED 243 

from his domain he even furnished Austria with a quota 
of 57% men for the army, the half man being made good 
by a whole one in the second year of the war. So on the 
whole they have not done badly, these Austrian nobles 
in whose veins courses the blood of many nations. 

Then the imperial house, the many-branched house of 
Habsburg. That did pretty well, too, in this respect. It 
is true that not a single member of it, out of about 170, 
gave his life fighting at the front, whereas in Germany 
about a score of members belonging to the reigning fam- 
ilies were killed in action, including several Hohenzol- 
lerns. But as I said, in support of these war charities the 
Habsburgs of both sexes did "their bit." Curiously 
enough, the late Emperor Francis Joseph was rather 
niggardly, although his revenues were so immense that 
he could by no possibility spend them. It made an almost 
ludicrous impression, that little item published in the 
Vienna papers every month, setting forth that the mon- 
arch had "again deigned" to give to the Eed Cross 
"10,000 cigarettes, 1,200 pounds of smoking tobacco," 
etc. Of any large amount contributed by him through- 
out the war for any charitable purpose I never heard a 
word. But his son-in-law. Archduke Francis Salvator, 
had put himself at the head of the Austrian Eed Cross 
right at the beginning of the war, and he worked inde- 
fatigably at it, devoting his entire time and energy to 
the task of organising, raising funds and applying them 
in the wisest manner. It took hard work, too, to accom- 
plish anything like an efficient and comprehensive organi- 
sation. It required considerable time, for one thing. I 
recall the deficient and ill-systematised ambulance corps 
during the first three or four months of the war. There 
were not nearly enough ambulances, to begin with, and 
they were vehicles so ill devised as to make a jolting 



244 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

ride in them a martyrdom for those conveyed. There 
was a great lack of ambulance trains also, and of skilled 
men and women in the service. On the trains many of the 
more seriously injured died in transit, and many more 
in the ambulances themselves. The great task of estab- 
lishing efficient first aid to the wounded as they were 
brought in from the trenches or the battlefield, took much 
pains to accomplish. All these things were, especially 
in the forepart of the war, both as regards the Austrian 
and Hungarian contingents of the joint army, in much 
worse shape than was the case with the German forces. 
And as the number of available medical men and their 
assistants was also much smaller, it may readily be un- 
derstood that the task of bringing order into this chaos 
and of evolving finally something like a really serviceable 
and adequate Eed Cross staff and crews was in truth 
a herculean one. In all this, no doubt, the prestige of 
Archduke Francis Salvator's name and of his close rela- 
tionship to the ruling monarch was of great avail. Fur- 
thermore, during the period when funds were lowest and 
hardest to obtain— about till spring 1915 — the Archduke 
gave freely from his own purse, notwithstanding that he 
is by no means one of the wealthiest members of the 
Habsburg family. His wife assisted him greatly in this. 
She, the daughter of the late emperor, created, however, 
very soon a specialty of her own, one which appealed with 
particular force to her woman's heart — the care of and 
aid to the widows and orphans of soldiers killed in ac- 
tion or dead from illness contracted at the front. To 
this she devoted herself with infinite tact and with a 
never-tiring zeal that is beyond all praise. Of course, all 
she has been able to accomplish in this field up to the 
present day could only be patchwork. Legislation is 
urgently needed, both in Austria and Hungary, to ap- 



AID TO NEEDY AND INJURED 245 

propriate sums for partial relief or for permanent pen- 
sions large enough to meet the terrific requirements at 
least somewhat satisfactorily. This is going to be one of 
the greatest post helium difficulties for Austria-Hungary. 
In former days, when the monarchy had no general and 
compulsory military service (therefore, up to the time 
of their last great war, that of 1866) pensions were so 
small that they were scarcely anything better than alms. 
And the number of pensioners, too, was never very great. 
But this present war has already made an enormous army 
of crippled and wholly or partially disabled men, one 
probably rather exceeding the million mark than below 
it. And to provide for those will alone tax poor Austria- 
Hungary's capacity to the utmost. Meanwhile Arch- 
duchess Marie Valerie, with the voluntary aid of the 
whole population, has done what was possible. But even 
now fearful distress prevails among many of these poor 
widows and orphans, for the money available is wholly 
insufficient. 

For the successful prosecution of the Red Cross work 
— at least successful under the aggravating circumstances 
— ^Archduke Francis Salvator and his corps of high- 
born coadjutors has had to thank specially the masses 
of the people. The same is true of Hungary, where the 
Archduchess Augusta (wife of the daredevil Archduke 
Joseph, one of the most dashing Hungarian commanding 
generals) has greatly exerted herself in behalf of the 
Red Cross. There the participation of the Magnates 
(members of the historic families, the highest aristoc- 
racy) has been on a par with that of their Austrian 
brethren. On the whole, however, owing to the fact that 
Hungary is, in point of capital, twice as poor as Austria, 
the Red Cross work there has been much more deficient. 

In Austria no part of the civilian population has done 



246 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

more in the way of raising funds for the Red Cross than 
the school youth. Of course, those half-grown boys and 
girls had to be told first about the horrors of war and 
about the patriotic duty devolving on them to alleviate 
them so far as lay in their power. But the lesson was 
soon learnt, and to the observer it was a pathetic spec- 
tacle to see these thousands upon thousands of youths 
and maidens devoting themselves night and day to the 
task of gathering funds, cast-off clothing, shoes, peri- 
odicals, dainties for the hospitals, all sorts of commodi- 
ties grown scarce yet needed urgently to prosecute the 
war, such as copper, cotton, leather, nickel, worn-out sil- 
ver plate, etc., etc. On certain stated days these scholars 
of both sexes, picked, of course, by the teaching staffs for 
their spotless characters and for a strong sense of duty 
— the press having first made known the fact — ^to the 
number of many thousands and working under the super- 
vision of responsible and experienced adults would sally 
forth. Some days the object was just the collection of 
cash money. They would be furnished with capacious, 
locked cash boxes (something like children's savings 
banks) and with a supply of some artificial flowers. 
These were donated by the manufacturers by the mil- 
lion. On one day it would be a scarlet poppy, again a 
geranium, a chrysanthemum, a rose, a pink, etc. The 
minimum permissible contribution would be proclaimed 
and published, usually a nickel coin worth four cents, and 
nearly everybody, high and low, would give. The num- 
ber of flowers pinned in the buttonhole would show the 
number of contributions, for there was no escaping these 
persistent youngsters; they were met with everywhere, 
even on the highroads leading to the city. And it was 
amazing how large the sums would thus grow — merely 
because nobody avoided giving, not even the humblest. 



AID TO NEEDY AND INJURED 247 

Again and again, to my certain knowledge, the available 
Red Cross exchequer (or some other as meritorious) had 
run so low there was danger of suspension, when such 
collections as I described would come to the rescue just 
in time. In Vienna and vicinity once not less than 600,000 
kronen ($120,000) was within two holidays, in the spring 
of 1916, gathered in by these school children of twelve 
to sixteen years old. They did their work quite sys- 
tematically, usually three together, two girls and one boy, 
or one girl and two boys ; their office marked by a band 
around the arm ; confining themselves to a certain speci- 
fied neighbourhood, and instructed to deliver up their 
boxes in the presence of witnesses at a certain place and 
hour. Scarcely any dishonesty was ever heard of. The 
girls and boys were proud to help their distressed coun- 
try, and neither rain nor cold, neither heat nor sunshine 
could stop them from doing what they deemed right. 

Another organisation that did much good, though in 
another field, were the Knights of St. John, a mediaeval 
brotherhood vowed to succour the wounded and sick. Of 
these a large number are still existing on Austrian soil 
— all of noble lineage, "knights," in fact, — ^with a master 
who is also a Habsburg. This order devoted itself chiefly 
to taking care of wounded officers. They took them, in 
a couple of trains luxuriously fitted up and containing 
the best medical aid and nurses, usually to some of the 
hospitals owned by them and equipped splendidly. Some 
of these stand in the midst of extensive grounds, parks 
or gardens, and the inmates are there received as were 
distressed knights of old, as brothers-in-arms, as fellow- 
Christians, and are nursed back to health in pleasant sur- 
roundings or buried in state if they unfortunately die. 
The only drawback to the activity of this semi-religious 
order (and to which hundreds of Austrian nobles be- 



248 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

long)' is that its sphere is rather limited. But within 
it much good has been accomplished. 

Archduchess Maria Theresa, wife of Archduke Carl 
Stephen (at present the most prominent candidate for the 
throne of renewed Poland), together with her husband 
made the care of perhaps the most unfortunate class of 
war victims, viz., those who had lost their eyesight, her 
specialty. The percentage of injuries leading to total 
blindness is not as large in this war as many have sup- 
posed. And this despite poison gases, splinters from 
shell, shrapnel or bomb ; in fact, when expressed by per- 
centage the number seems almost negligible, scarcely 
more than a thousand or so. But the fate of these poor 
fellows, at best, is such a sad one that figures alone do 
not tell the whole story. Several times I took occasion to 
look up the Kriegshlinden Anstalt (Institution for the 
War Blind) founded and wholly supported by the arch- 
duchess. It is an attractive place — if the inmates could 
but see it — situated in a suburb of Vienna and set in 
green, with the pure fresh air streaming in at every win- 
dow. One of the leading traits of the Austrian or Hun- 
garian is cheerfulness under all circumstances. Rarely 
you meet a person there no matter how humble, no mat- 
ter how poverty-pinched, that does not possess that great 
gift — cheerfulness. And so here in this refuge for the 
blind. It is well known that it is twice as hard for a 
person of normal eyesight to lose it than to be born 
blind. And those men here, almost without exception, 
had also undergone great physical torture in the very 
process of becoming blind. Many had lain, helpless 
wrecks, for months and months in hospitals before they 
were rehabilitated sufficiently to become inmates of this 
institution. Yet what I found, in wandering through the 
big place and its adjacent workshops, was a lot of men 



AID TO NEEDY AND INJURED 249 

apparently content, reconciled to tlieir sad lot, nay, even 
rollicking, gay, smiling. Right in the first hall I visited, 
that of the performing musicians, I met a strapping 
young man of twenty-five or so, who looked up with 
his sightless eyes and listened. He had just eaten his 
spare noon meal. A satisfied smile played about his 
lips, as who should say: 

"Fate cannot harm me, 
I have dined to-day." 

And so they all were — all trying to make the best of it, 
not the worst. With three or four exceptions those men 
were simple souls. At home, in peace times, they had 
been peasants, '^timber jacks," rural labourers, small 
shopkeepers, mechanics. And now they were being 
taught a new trade, in each case one commensurate with 
their powers, one that could be plied without the use of 
their eyes. The head patroness of the institution, the 
Archduchess Maria Theresa, had been fortunate in her 
choice of a superintendent. It was a man who had all 
his life been teaching and training the blind, an enthusi- 
ast of thirty years' standing, an excellent instructor in 
all that the blind may learn and do, withal a man of 
boundless sympathies. But here his task was a novel 
one, quite out of his accustomed rut. The more laudable 
that he had grasped it. Out of the 250, in round figures, 
under his care at the time, he had successfully adapted 
his methods of reading character and measuring abili- 
ties to those unfortunates. Nearly every one of them 
had adopted a new calling and was on the road to com- 
plete success. Another couple of hundred had already 
passed through his hands, ''graduated" and found their 
way back to practical life, had usually returned to their 



250 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY; POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

home towns or villages, and were even now earning a 
living. * ' For that is the worst dread that hangs over the 
minds of these men," said he, "the dread of becoming 
useless, a burden to their families or communities. Once 
they are rid of this fear, life once more is of interest to 
them. And another thing. Exactly like cripples, they 
hate to be pitied and petted. They want to be spoken to 
and treated exactly like other men, and their deficiency, 
their blindness, they wish to be ignored, not dwelt on." 
And I found in my talks with these poor fellows that this 
expert had spoken true. They were sensitive, extremely 
sensitive, just on this one point — ^they wanted to be con- 
sidered normal human beings, not derelicts. 

All sorts of trades were taught them in the workshops 
— even blacksmithing and horseshoeing. But in most 
cases the new calling they had elected was of a different 
description. During their enforced long abstention from 
manual toil their work-worn hands, formerly rough and 
uncouth, had become tender. Their finger tips had be- 
come sensitive. Their sense of hearing had quickened. 
These new qualities were now utilised. They had been 
taught such trades where delicacy of touch was of some 
avail — such as carvers and sculptors in wood, cabinet 
makers, repairers of broken furniture, opticians, even 
watchmakers. And a score of them had been picked, 
because of their ear for music and because they had al- 
ready possessed the rudiments of it, for performing musi- 
cians, and later on I listened to a little concert they gave. 
One of them, a schoolmaster, was leader of the band. He 
also did most of the training. So these men were not 
only cheerful — they seemed to be almost happy. One, 
and one only, was an exception. It was a youth of 
scarcely 19, from the mountains of Styria, not far from 
the giant peak, the Dachstein. He was a handsome young 



AID TO NEEDY AND INJURED 251 

fellow, but looked intensely miserable. He had not only 
lost both his eyes — only the hollow sockets remained — ^bnt 
his former good spirits as well, and the same shell which 
had robbed him of sight had also affected his nervous 
system. The shock had made him a prey to melancholia. 
He was unable to concentrate his mind on anything, and 
he was to be transferred next day to a sanitarium. 

Still, as was intimated before, these ''war blind" 
formed but a very small minority of the enormous army 
of war cripples of every kind. During the spring and 
summer of 1915 it was pitiful to observe the great num- 
ber of these incapacitated soldiers that were temporarily 
quartered in Vienna and its eighty odd war hospitals 
alone. On mild, sunny days they would swarm along the 
whole Eingstrasse. Their total number in Vienna was 
at that period computed at about 70,000. Many thou- 
sands of them were victims of the terrible Carpathian 
campaign, had frozen one or more limbs in the awful 
snow-clad mountain passes. I entered frequently into 
conversation with some of these men. They all shud- 
dered when they spoke of the terrors of that campaign. 
And one overwhelmingly great trouble that they and the 
Austrian as well as the Hungarian government faced at 
the period I speak of was the lack of artificial limbs ; not 
only that but the insufficient ability to make them. It 
was chiefly due to one man — and indirectly to America — 
that this fatal defect was overcome. 

One fine May morning I noticed two cripples pegging 
their way along my row of benches on the Eingstrasse. 
The mere sight of them was enough to engage atten- 
tion. They were, both of them, really but trunks of men. 
For their legs and arms were gone. These had been 
frozen in the Carpathians, and later amputated in a 
Vienna hospital. But here they were — walking (or 



252 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

rather hopping) along with the aid of canes, and with 
arms and hands able to seize things and to hold on to 
them. Artificial limbs evidently. So I inquired. ''Yes," 
they said with dancing eyes, ' ' these nice new limbs were 
made by a man named Joseph Leiter, right here in this 
town. And they're almost as good as our old ones." 

That was how I came to find out about this man Leiter. 
I looked him up. He had quite a big establishment, also 
a large store and warehouse near the University, its 
clinics and operating rooms, and but a stone's throw 
from the huge city hospital, the Allgemeine Krankenhaus 
on Alser Strasse, which every American physician ever 
visiting Vienna for purposes of study knows so well. 
Early in the war when amputations became more and 
more numerous, Leiter, who had hitherto been a well- 
known specialist in orthopedic and surgical appliances, 
began to say to himself that the manufacture of artificial 
limbs on a large scale would become necessary. For up 
to that time Austria and Hungary, being countries where 
accidents leading to loss of limbs have been quite rare 
and where consequently there had been little demand for 
''protheses" (as substitutes for the natural article, the 
limb, are professionally termed in Vienna), had mostly 
imported them from the United States or Germany, about 
80 per cent, from the United States. Now, however, there 
being a large market for such ''protheses," and imports 
from America having ceased, it would evidently pay to 
make them in goodly numbers. And so Leiter, with an 
enterprising spirit truly exceptional in slow-going, con- 
servative Vienna, turned the whole resources of his es- 
tablishment into that channel. His first models used for 
the purpose were American made. An Austro- American 
named Albert Wiesner who, some years previous, had 
met with a frightful accident while employed in the con- 



AID TO NEEDY AND INJURED 253 

struction of a steel skyscraper in Spokane, Wash., came 
to him for repairs. Wiesner had on the occasion re- 
ferred to got his feet in contact with an electric wire, 
and had had both of them burned to a crisp. In due 
course of time he had got a pair of first-class artificial 
feet strapped to his ankles and had learned to walk for 
the second time in his life. Then, when all was over and 
he had received $2,500 besides from his employer as com- 
pensation, he had returned to his native Vienna where 
he had secured some hght employment. Now his bogus 
feet needed treatment, however, the ligatures and ball- 
bearing tendons being out of order, Leiter fitted him up 
again, and from the original he turned out a few counter- 
feits. These were gladly purchased for some crippled 
soldiers at a nearby war hospital, and thus the founda- 
tion was laid for a new line of business that grew by 
leaps and bounds until it became about ten times as large 
as had been the old Leiter plant. Leiter soon found imi- 
tators and competitors, and the supply became ample for 
the extensive demand. 

In surgery Vienna has held for long a prominent place, 
a fact which was known to the world long before Prof. 
Lorenz and his wonderful cure of little Lolita Armour. 
During this war Austrian surgery has again scored many 
triumphs, although in the nature of things these have 
not been much spoken of in the other belligerent coun- 
tries. I can speak, however, with some knowledge on the 
subject, at least to the extent of mentioning some mar- 
vellous cases. Dr. Eastman, one of the American doctors 
sent to Austria by the war department at Washington 
to study new methods and perfect themselves in them 
(and let me say, in an aside, that all the American physi- 
cians thus sent were cordially welcomed and agree in 
describing the treatment accorded them throughout the 



254 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

long war as kind and appreciative), saw some of these 
wonderful things, wonderful at least from the scientific 
viewpoint. I do not go into details here, as these would 
only be of interest to professional men. But out of the 
plethora of material at hand, let me at least briefly men- 
tion a few instances. These are taken from the records of 
the Eiselsberg clinic in Vienna. Professor von Eisels- 
berg (who was created a baron by the late emperor) is 
a surgical wizard whose daring new methods and novel 
adaptations of old ones to new needs would be universally 
commented on to-day if these were days of peace. He 
and Prof. Klingenberg jointly perfected the structure of 
magnetic artificial hands. The principle is simplicity it- 
self. A ''pot" mag-net, enclosed in a steel cylinder, is 
affixed to the cuffs of an artificial hand. By connecting 
this cylinder with an electric current (and one of very 
small power will do), a strong magnetising of the whole 
apparatus is effected. The current can be interrupted at 
will by motions of the foot. The magnetic force thus de- 
veloped is sufficient for the enclosed magnet to attach it- 
self to and strongly retain all sorts of iron and steel 
objects. A crippled soldier (or anybody else having the 
apparatus attached) can without further preparation and 
without any great expenditure of muscular power, do all 
sorts of work necessary in the iron and steel industry, 
such as filing, turning, punching, stamping, etc. By some 
additional manipulation other work, even of the most 
complicated and delicate description, may also be per- 
formed for any length of time. Of even greater prac- 
tical importance is the kinoplastic treatment invented 
by Eiselsberg. This consists in the artificial hands and 
feet being joined to the severed tendons and made almost 
as useful as the original members. This method lends 
an incredible degree of suppleness to the artificial fin- 



AID TO NEEDY AND INJURED 255 

gers and toes. Lastly I must mention a case wliicli seemed 
to me, humanly speaking, almost miraculous, yet wliicli I 
was permitted to observe. It was the case of a young 
Greek lieutenant, severely wounded in the Balkan war. 
The young man, 23, of fine physique, was the son of a 
very wealthy Greek merchant of Patras and Cairo, and 
during an engagement a Turkish bullet entered his fore- 
head between the eyes and left it at the nape of the neck. 
In traversing the whole of the cerebellum the projectile 
carried considerable brain matter along, leaving a ragged 
hole large enough to insert a thumb. After preliminary, 
rather unsatisfactory, treatment the young man under the 
guidance of his father was sent to Eiselsberg. At that 
time his general vitality had suffered; his power of 
speech was affected, so that he spoke brokenly and often 
would stop, unable to remember. At the Eiselsberg clinic 
the young Greek recovered fully within six weeks, so 
that every abnormal symptom wholly and permanently 
disappeared. According to all the old-time tenets of 
surgery he had no business to live at all, let alone to 
recover. Yet here he was, alive and well. 

And yet another case I must briefly refer to. It was 
that of a young Austrian officer who had fought with dis- 
tinction through the whole war, being decorated twice and 
promoted over the heads of others. In his private capac- 
ity he was a civil engineer who had earned a reputation 
for his work. On the Italian front one day a big shell 
burst in his immediate vicinity, and on rocky soil. Frag- 
ments of rock tore away the entire right half of his face, 
bones and all. He was a horrible sight when taken, as a 
last resort, to the Eiselsberg clinic. Within six months 
the lacking part of his face had been supplied anew and 
presented an appearance not much different from what 
it once was. To accomplish this there had been done some 



256 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

surgical work probably unequalled before. This con- 
sisted not only in the transplanting of living tissue — skin 
and flesh both — ^but of lifeless bone which had been 
grafted upon the ends of living bone and had been per- 
fectly integrated. In short, the missing half of the face 
had been rebuilt, inch by inch and bit by bit, and so com- 
pletely amalgamated with the pre-existing parts as to 
form a new and organic whole. Portions of the new skin 
and flesh came from animals (chickens, etc.) and yet 
looks to-day to all intents and purposes thoroughly hu- 
man. Among the wonders this war has wrought let us 
not forget phenomenal advance in daring, original sur- 
gery. 



CHAPTER XVI 

REFUGE CAMPS AND BARRACK TOWNS 

The largest of these barrack towns in southern Styria — Sixty 
thousand Ladiners given a temporary home — Fled before the ad- 
vancing Italians — Some facts about this curious people — Remnant 
of the aboriginal Celtic population in the days of Ceesar — Strong 
resemblance with Welsh and Breton people — ^Lovers of music, 
poetry and fairy tales — A concert with a quartette in it — Their 
tongue and their literature — Walks about the town — 800,000 fugi- 
tives from Galicia — How they were disposed of — Camps in Bohemia 
and Moravia — Some 250,000 in Vienna — Ruling passion still strong 
— Food speculators and how punished — War fortunes made on 
credit — Wa:r ministry in Vienna and Budapest involved — Scandals 
laid bare— A cunning swindle — ^Fugitive camps for penniless 
Hebrews from Galicia — Schools in operation — Trades taught — 
Munitions plants started and run entirely with fugitive labour — 
Slow repatriation — Some pertinent stories. 

Up to the present Austria-Hungary has had to take 
care, during longer or shorter periods of this war, of 
about one million and a half of her civilian population 
that had either been evacuated or fled before the advance 
of the enemy. By far the greater half of this number 
came from Galicia and Bukovina. There the Russians 
were the invaders. From Galicia, a province bordering 
on Russian territory for a distance of altogether about 
300 miles, at one particular point of this long war about 
800,000 men, women and children had sought safety in 
flight; that is, about one-tenth of the total population. 
Most of those 800,000 had had to use so much haste that 

257 



258 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

very little of their property had been brought along, and 
in thousands and thousands of cases these unfortunates 
had nothing but what they wore on their backs when at 
last they reached safety. In many, many instances the 
circumstances were as pitiable and pathetic as possible. 
There were dainty ladies in silk or velvet, in evening at- 
tire, with nothing but a priceless sable stole or fur mantle 
thrown over it. They had been at a sociable party given 
by one of their hospitable neighbours in Eastern Galicia, 
not far from the border. At table, suddenly there had 
come the cry: ''The Cossacks!" Everybody had risen 
and run to the window whence a wide view was to be 
obtained. "Look, Spiridion! Look, Mamushka! The 
village is on fire. ' ' By the glare of the flames a band of 
Cossacks could be seen, a mile or so off, urging their 
horses on a run. The lady, nay, everybody, was panic- 
stricken. Just as she was, with her thin patent leather 
shoes, in her bare neck, she ran out into the snow-covered 
road, grasping her little boy by the hand and praying 
aloud to be saved, begging and imploring Heaven to 
grant her a merciful death rather than fall into the hands 
of these terrible Cossacks — "They are Kubans, too, the 
wildest and most bloodthirsty of them all," so she had 
heard a maid at her host's house shrieking. On, on, on 
— stumbling, falling on the slippery, rough road that led, 
five miles away, to the nearest station where it was hoped 
to find an emergency train. And thus, bleeding, dis- 
hevelled, sleepless, wrought up to an insane pitch of ex- 
citement, this particular lady. Countess Zamoyska, the 
owner of a princely estate and large revenues, had at last 
reached Vienna after 36 hours of hysterical flight. Her 
husband an officer in the Austrian army, nobody to pro- 
tect her, to cling to, but her little Spiridion of five years 
old. And when she at last registered at a Vienna hotel 



REFUGE CAMPS AND BARRACK TOWNS 259 

the only thing she had to assure them that she was no 
adventuress, no beggar, was the string of pearls she had 
worn on her neck at the party — oh, how long ago — and 
this she fished out with trembling fingers from between 
the seams of her fur wrap where she had hidden it. 

Of such stories I heard a number those gloomy days of 
late fall and early winter of 1914. I remember a ' * Fugi- 
tives ' Coffee House. ' ' Wealthy Polish ladies had quickly 
fitted it up and opened it, right in the busy heart of 
Vienna. It was not run on business principles. Quite 
the reverse. A committee of ladies, headed by three of 
the most exclusive aristocrats, had been formed. Jointly 
they had undertaken this and jointly, too, they man- 
aged it. One noon when I was there I noticed an old 
gentleman in one comer, gazing blankly, despairingly at 
the motley crowd around him. ''Who is he?" I asked 
the committee lady in charge just that hour. ''That is 
Professor Al . . . i, who holds the chair of modem phi- 
losophy at the University of Lemberg," she whispered 
back to me. The poor old man, with his venerable beard 
of grey, had not a penny to buy some food, and he was 
ashamed to beg. So the committee lady had to help him 
out. Many, many cases as pitiable as that, and more so. 
A number of these fugitives reached Vienna only to die — 
the horrors of their flight, the hardships, the inclement 
weather, snow and cold and wet, the want of shelter and 
rest, the lack of nourishment and restoratives — all had 
combined to kill by inches some of the feeble and delicate. 
At first, too, there were amongst these multitudes and 
multitudes of half -crazed people, all mixed and mingled in 
inextricable confusion, persons of large means, even mil- 
lionaires, yet for the moment veritable beggars. Flight 
had been so sudden and unexpected they had not been able 
to prepare for it. Now they were part of a semi-demented 



260 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

herd of fellow-fugitives, in a strange town. These cases, 
of course, did not take long to adjust themselves. Capital 
is mighty everywhere, but only in normal times. Once 
the banks in Vienna knew whom they had to deal with, 
once makers of checks had been identified, had produced 
proof of some portion of their wealth at least being out 
of the reach of Russian invaders, safe doors swung open 
readily enough and means were available. But there 
were many unusual cases notwithstanding. Cases of such 
persons whose social standing in their Polish homes in 
Galicia had never been doubted ; yet here in these novel 
surroundings they met with rebuffs. Yet, more or less 
the greater bulk of these Galician fugitives were taken 
care of. The government for a long, long while did 
scarcely anything but furnish free transportation and 
advice. There were no funds available for the purpose 
until later. It was all a jumble. There was no organisa- 
tion to help these poor people — to feed the hungry and 
give them shelter. Later on it was different. But after 
all, it was the municipal government of Vienna — one in 
which the Christian Socialist party, so-called, is domi- 
nant and which, indeed, laid the stress on the Christian 
on this and similar subsequent occasions — which had to 
do most of the good work. "Within a short while the num- 
ber of these Galician fugitives in Vienna alone crept 
up to a quarter of a million and kept at that altitude for 
months and months. The Mayor of the city, an able 
and large-hearted man, aided by a few of his aldermen 
{Gemeinderat is the title of the office there) exerted him- 
self tremendously. Voluntary contributions poured in 
from all classes. One of the most sympathetic traits 
of the Viennese is a compassion that knows no bounds 
and no distinctions. And in this instance they proved it 
again. As the great majority of the fugitive Galicians 



EEFUGE CAMPS AND BAREACK TOWNS 261 

were Hebrews, tlie wealthy Jews of Vienna dug down 
deep in their pockets and hauled out altogether, in the 
course of the next twelvemonth, a matter of about ten to 
twelve million Kronen (a Krone, about twenty cents), 
merely to help support this vast host. But the city, 
after all, did the lion's share. That wonderfully flex- 
ible city charter of Vienna — so flexible that were it not 
for uniformly honest and sensible management there 
might be stolen or squandered a king's ransom every 
week — enables these men to handle the relief funds, to 
make appropriations of millions from the city treasury 
when the need for that arose, to keep under strict control 
in every way this vast army of 250,000 strangers, most 
of them speaking nothing but their Yiddish jargon (un- 
intelligible to a real Teuton) or Polish; and to provide 
for them all, to rule the unruly or lazy or corrupt, to 
provide remunerative employment for those that re- 
quired it. In a word, Vienna and the Jewry of Vienna 
did well in such an unprecedented emergency. A big al- 
dermanic council for a year and more did almost noth- 
ing but look after these strangers from Galicia, their 
wives and babes, their sick and needy and dying. 

And as it was with the fugitives from Galicia, so also 
it was with those from Bukovina. With the Slovaks and 
Euthenians settled in the northeastern counties — or 
Comitats — of Hungary, that were driven out by the long 
Carpathian campaign the Eussians waged till June, 1915, 
Austria and Vienna had little to dp. These were taken 
care of by the Hungarian government and found refuge 
in Budapest at first and later on in barrack camps spe- 
cially constructed. But Bukovina foims part of Austria 
and this from the start was one of the chief objective 
points of the Eussian plan of campaign as devised by 
their commander-in-chief, the Grand Duke Nicholas 



262 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

Nicholayevitch. The capital city of Bukovina, Czerno- 
witz, one of the most attractive and charming cities of 
the monarchy, was three times taken and twice released 
by the Russians. At this writing, as one of the fruits 
of the Brusiloff drive in the summer of 1916, it is again 
held by the Russians. The Russians made hostages of 
a number of the leading citizens there and sent them to 
Siberia, finally exchanging them for prominent Russians 
seized by the Austrians during their own big offensive 
in 1915. But some 50,000 or 60,000 Bukovinians fled be- 
fore the Russian advance, and these again found their 
way mostly to Vienna. Among them were the professors 
and lecturers of the Czernowitz University and nearly all 
the rest of the '' intelligentsia" (members of the learned 
professions) of that small province. They and most of 
the others were in about as sad a plight as the Galicians, 
and again private charity and contributions did the most. 

However, more about these Galicians later. Just now 
I should like to tell the reader something about a curious 
little race that is also among the victims of this relent- 
less war. I am speaking of the Ladiners. Some 60,000 
of these have been, and still are, dwelling in a sheltered 
valley of South Styria, a short distance from Marburg, 
ever since the summer of 1915. They were evacuated or 
fled before the Italian advance, and these 60,000 were 
for the larger part residents of the city of Gorz (or 
Gorizia), with additions from the nearby districts of 
Istria and Gradiska. 

These Ladiners are a very interesting people. Having 
heard of their existence before and finding myself in 
that neighbourhood, during a short tour I made of the 
Dolomite range and valleys in the summer of 1913, I 
took time to make myself acquainted with some of the 
Ladiner communities and villages and to delve a little 



EEFUGE CAMPS AND BAEEACK TOWNS 263 

into their past. It is a hoary past, going back in a 
straight, unbroken line to the days of Caesar and even 
beyond, to those of Marius and Cinna. For these Ladi- 
ners were the prehistoric settlers of parts of Northern 
Italy, of the Trentino, of Gorz and Gradiska, and of the 
canton of Grisons, Switzerland. The largest number of 
them dwell in enclosures east of Trent, of Eovereto, of 
Flims. On Austrian soil there are altogether about half 
a million of them. Their tongue, a peculiar mixture of 
ancient Latin and of more ancient Celtic, has in the main 
preserved its stock of original Celtic words for familiar 
phrases and for objects of everyday use, while the struc- 
ture of its grammar resembles more the Latin. It is by 
no means Italian. In fact, its case betrays a close anal- 
ogy with the amalgamation of two tongues in modern 
English. To the ear, however, the Celtic origin is quite 
unmistakeable. It has retained the harsh Celtic gut- 
tural sound, almost precisely like that which has sur- 
vived in the Welsh. Indeed, it is not only in the language 
that a striking resemblance between these Ladiners of 
Austria and the Welsh of England and the Bretons of 
France obtrudes itself. For this resemblance is just as 
noticeable in the physical appearance and in the peculiar 
racial gifts. No wonder. For from all accounts avail- 
able it would seem that the Ladiners have remained 
throughout twenty centuries and more almost pure Celts. 
In looks they are of medium height, rather slender and 
sinewy; black, shghtly wavy hair predominates, but the 
skin is often dazzling fair and eyes of deep violet 
are even more common among them than amongst the 
lasses of the West of Ireland. Their love of and talent 
for music and singing is as great as that of the Welsh. 
Their tongue, rhyming naturally and lending itself to 
poetry by its great wealth of picturesque metaphors, is 



264 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

not, as I pointed out, a mere dialect. It is a language, a 
literary medium. During the period of the Reformation, 
in the 16th century, many Ladiners, it seems, turned 
Protestant. And from that time dates a translation of 
the Bible, done, it is stated, by an old village school- 
master who has remained nameless. In the public library 
of Bozen, somewhat north of the Tyrolese settlements 
of the Ladiners, there is kept a collection of folk songs 
and short ditties in the popular vein — both with love for 
their theme and in other strain, written in the Ladiner 
tongue. A few newspapers, too, are published in it. But 
what those fragments of Ladiner literature that have 
come down to our time are choicest in are the folklore 
and fairy tales. These betray, if further proof were 
wanted, the Celtic strain of this small people most un- 
questionably. They abound in fairies (called fdi), in 
goblins and in mischievous or beneficent supernatural 
beings, just as do the Irish tales of the same description. 
Their spirit and humour, too, closely correspond. To 
cap it all, though, these people have the typical Celtic 
temperament. They are easily roused to joy or wrath. 
They are very variable in their mood; proud and sensi- 
tive ; rather aggressive, but easily appeased. Historical 
and local traditions are scant. But it would seem that 
the Ladiners have in the main always been an agricul- 
tural people, and that they have seldom mingled their 
blood with that of the surrounding Italian population. 
The latter, in fact, they hate. Nevertheless, the Irredenta 
movement, fostered and systematised from Italy, has 
made some progress among them. This results plainly 
from the fact that during the last fifty years, i.e., since 
the establishment of a national Italian kingdom, or regno, 
the number of Ladiners professing their own nationality 
has declined to the tune of nearly twenty-five per cent. 



REFUGE CAMPS AND BARRACK TOWNS 265 

The effects of this Italianising propaganda, however, has 
been conj&ned to the cities and towns. It had no effect 
in the rural districts where the majority of the Ladiners 
are settled. 

Now this small Ladiner people has been caught by this 
war between the nether and the upper millstone. When 
war was declared by Italy, in May, 1915, the front be- 
tween the new belligerents ran from the first, so far as 
Gorz and Istria are concerned, almost to their very house- 
doors. From the opening of hostilities the heavy guns of 
the Italians dropped their visiting cards right in the 
streets of Gorz. A little while later trenches had been 
advanced so that a rain of bullets would often sweep 
through its main streets. An Austrian officer whom I 
visited in a Vienna hospital afterwards had been hit 
while seated at the window of the Cafe Schmeisser in 
Gorz with his coffee and newspaper. At last, the pretty, 
wholly Southern city being largely demolished, the Aus- 
trian commander, Boroevic, considered further steady 
losses for the sake of a heap of ruins no longer worth 
while, and abandoned Gorz to the Italians. Now the 
Italian officers sit at the same window in the Cafe and 
run the same chances, as guns and bullets are as near, 
only from another direction. 

Long before this happened, though, in fact, right after 
the campaign started, the Austrian government had be- 
gun to make ready the huge barrack town for the fugi- 
tive Ladiners from Gorz, and last year I paid a visit to 
this haven of refuge and made extensive acquaintance 
with the dwellers therein. It is a lovely spot, this val- 
ley. A mountain stream and two brooks tumbling down 
the steep sides encompassing the town furnish plenty of 
water for all purposes. The water is clear as crystal 
and cool and fresh the year through. It and the soft, 



266 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

balmy air which is due to the encircling mountains that 
exclude the northern blasts are largely responsible for 
the low mortality — about 3.5 per 1,000 — although the pre- 
ventive sanitary arrangements and the medical labora- 
tory supervised by a well-known Vienna expert in charge 
of health conditions, and life in the open may also have 
something to do with it. For as a matter of simple truth 
I ought to mention that the comprehensive hygienic ar- 
rangements and the enforcement of a few precautionary 
rules have probably done much to keep all epidemics 
away from this favoured spot. Each one of the inmates 
of the barrack town has been vaccinated, and preventive 
treatment against spotted typhoid, dysentery, cholera and 
other war scourges has been rigorously observed. But 
the mild, pleasant climate of the place, the absence of 
rough winds which these children of a softer climate are 
particularly sensitive to, and the pine woods surrounding 
them on all sides, doubtless did as much. 

When they ''moved in," so to speak, in the early fall 
of 1915 they found their new home ready to receive 
them. It is a complete town, complete in everything. 
There are two churches, a general hospital, an asylum 
for nurslings and their mothers, a lying-in-hospital, six 
schools, two enormous kitchens (one for married, one 
for unmarried people), a score or more of dormitories, 
hundreds of smaller cottages, a training school for 
nurses, domestic science, another one where mechanical 
trades are learnt, immense workshops, and lastly, a 
''movie" theatre, a vaudeville stage, a huge dance hall, 
and a singing academy. The last named especially 
claimed my attention, knowing the great talent for musio 
of these Ladiner folk. So I steered for that first. I 
found it under the direction of the late choirmaster and 
organist of the cathedral at Gorz, Faidutti by name, a 



EEFUGE CAMPS AND BARRACK TOWNS 267 

gray-haired man full of youthful enthusiasm. He is well- 
known indeed not only in his special sphere but also as 
a composer of church music. As a teacher of vocalism 
he has taught several of his pupils enough to enable them 
later on to find operatic engagements both in their native 
Austria and in Italy and Germany. 

In honour of the stranger the venerable choirmaster 
called upon one of his quartettes and had them sing a 
few of their choicest Ladiner folk airs. I was dumb- 
founded. Those halfgrown lads and lasses sang better 
than many a high-priced star; with voices thoroughly 
schooled, words well enunciated, sound swelling and ebb- 
ing — regular bel ccmto of the kind so seldom heard now- 
adays. But of course their themes did also much to 
delight the listener. For those folk airs, which were 
sentimental and sweet and old-fashioned, pathetic and 
stirring, jubilant and reckless, then teasing and petulant 
by turns, ran up and down the whole scale of human 
emotions, drew tears, smiles and laughter. One tune 
had such a haunting quality that I had the text trans- 
lated for me. For they were all sung in the vernacular. 
Words and music alike had anonymous authors. This 
particular one treated of the old, old pain at parting : 

My Marietta, shall we meet again? 

(And the world so wide, and the roads so far) 

Ai, shall we meet again? 

And the refrain: **If not in this then in another world.'' 
It was such a rare treat, this concert, that it did not 
astonish me when I heard later on that Maestro Faidutti 
from his chorus of 1,200 had picked a choice dozen of 
voices and with the consent of the government, under- 
took with them a short concert tour. They went to 



268 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

Graz, to Vienna, to Breslau and Berlin. And right in 
the midst of this bloody war, in the heyday of the "bread 
card," the reception these youthful Ladiners with their 
leader found was overpowering. Their artistic success 
was immense, and as to their financial one, that was at 
least great enough to benefit substantially the whole 
colony of 60,000 for some time to come. For it is true 
that money was scarce in this barrack town, spick and 
span and neat and clean as it was in all respects. The 
Austrian government could not afford to feed those 
60,000 on delicacies. The fare was rude and none too 
ample, and the universal lack of cash under which all the 
dwellers more or less suffered was but scantily amended 
by the sale of their artistic or industrial products. As 
to the artistic products, the chief ones for which a good 
market was found were the work of the wood sculptors 
and carvers. These comprised, however, not only statu- 
ettes of saints and shrines for churches and wayside 
stations — ^blue-coated Josephs and white-winged angels, 
etc.— but also lay carvings. I confess that the latter 
pleased me most. There was a little shop in this curious 
town of refugees where some of them were exposed for 
sale. And there again one might study the wide range 
of sympathies of this little Ladiner people. Their artis- 
tic conceptions embraced such things, for instance, as 
''Boys at Play;" "Fighting Street Urchins;" "Barking 
Dog at Gambol;" "Jealousy," etc. The last two more 
especially were evidently taken from life. "Jealousy" 
showed two village suitors bemauling each other, while 
the beauty herself stood aside smiling to herself. The 
"Barking Dog" had hold of the shirt tail of a frightened 
little boy, tugging and tearing for dear life. The tools 
which had been used in this work I saw — ^primitive en- 
tirely. The material was a tough, close-grained wood. 



EEFUGE CAMPS AND BAEEACK TOWNS 269 

perhaps boxwood. Fifty cents in American money was 
the guerdon the artist received for a carving of this kind. 
It required two days to do it. Then I made a call at the 
various schools. In one of them, a girls' school, they 
were just getting lessons in German. It sounded comi- 
cal. The tongue of these people has retained the rough 
Celtic guttural sound, and when these pupils struck such 
words, for instance, as "Kirche," church, they made it: 
" Kerrrhhkha" ; but they did their best with the strange 
idiom. Another visit was to the lying-in hospital, where 
I found an abundance of war babies — ^bed after bed, side 
by side, row upon row, several hundreds of them, with 
their more or less comfortable and complacent mammas. 
Both offspring and mothers were treated exceptionally 
well. They received all the intelligent, kindly care the 
well-to-do classes can afford. For babies have risen 
considerably in value during this war that has destroyed 
so much adult life. 

The fugitives from Galicia were of a wholly different 
type from these Ladiners in their idyllic surroundings. 
The 250,000 of them that had fled to Vienna in the early 
part of the war, contained also many thousands of penni- 
less Jews that had escaped the whip and the sword of 
the Cossacks by headlong flight, leaving all their little 
possessions behind. In many instances only parts of 
families had managed to get away in time, while other 
members of them had been massacred by the Eussians 
or else held captive during the period of occupation. 
Again, in the hurly-burly of flight families had been sep- 
arated, and the newspapers in Vienna for many months 
were full of advertisements in which Schmuhl Feigen- 
baum was demanding to know the whereabouts of Elka, 
his wife, or the son inquired the present residence of 
his father, etc. Frequently there was no response. Death 



270 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

had come in one shape or other. In the Leopoldstadt 
quarter of Vienna, where the humbler Jews mostly con- 
gregate, there was suddenly an endless concourse of new, 
strange figures — ^men in long gabardines, tiny circular 
caps of silk or velvet on their heads, and corkscrew curls 
meandering down the sides of the face ; women with wigs 
and ancient finery, blooming young Esthers and Susan- 
nahs ambling along with downcast eyes. Along the quays 
of the Danube Canal there was an endless procession of 
these — a new edition of Hebrew fugitives mourning by 
the waters. Rabbis in every costume and of every degree 
of holiness were scattered amongst them all. 

But the Hebrew pilgrim in this vale of tears bears aye 
the reputation of being irrepressible. From among this 
conglomerate collection of distressed humanity there 
soon came forth the men of business. It was instructive 
and interesting to watch their methods. As against the 
non-Jewish world they were a unit. They aided and 
supported each other. They clubbed their means of ready 
money together and jointly not only tried but accom- 
plished neat strokes of business, netting them perhaps 
$10,000, $20,000, $50,000, and then dividing it pro rata. 
Some of them, ay, many, did big business on no capital 
at all, just on credit. I recall a few sample cases of 
that description. Mendel Weixelbaum and Abraham 
Schweissfuss vouched for each other at the bank. Neither 
had a penny, but their cousin in Vienna, Ike Meisel, had 
some credit and a few dollars, and Ike vouched for them. 
So they there bought on credit three carloads of soap, 
raisins, apples, lubricating oil, and sold it the same day 
with a joint profit of about $4,500. Now they had money 
all three of them. Within a fortnight they were num- 
bered among the ''war usurers." A bunch of ten of 
these penniless capitalists made such clever use of their 



REFUGE CAMPS AND BARRACK TOWNS 271 

eloquence, sagacity and knowledge of tlie produce market 
that, in October, 1914, they cornered all the lentils in 
Vienna and made a fortune out of the deal. Within the 
winter of 1914-15 these fugitive gentry from Galicia cor- 
nered some of the foodstuffs most in demand — such as 
macaroni, dried peas and beans. These completely dis- 
appeared from view. But meanwhile these legumes, 
after being withdrawn from the open market, went from 
hand to hand, netting big profits at each deal and turning 
a score of the dealers into ''war millionaires." Specu- 
lation in indispensable commodities became the specialty 
of the Jewish refugees from Galicia that had found a 
haven in Vienna. Of course, they did not have it all 
their own way. The Austrian government began to in- 
terfere, but against this pressure there were always in- 
vented new and successful dodges and ruses. The courts 
took a hand and sent a score or more to jail. But that 
did not stop it. The thing paid too well. Neither did 
the imposition of heavy fines stop it. There was, for 
example, this case: A wholesale dealer in wine, with 
branches in Vienna and Prague, by contract secured from 
a number of vintners in the Tyrol some 90,000 gallons of 
Tyrolese wines, both red and white, at an average price 
of K 4.80 (or about $1.00) per gallon. With the aid of 
some of the financial geniuses recently arrived from 
Galicia he sold the wine at K. 13.60 per gallon, netting 
300 per cent, of profit. The court deciding under the 
war decrees that this constituted usury, not legitimate 
speculation, fined the defendants K. 10,000. But that 
left them still a net profit of about $160,000. It was simi- 
lar in most cases. But not this alone. Speculation in 
this field induced speculation in other fields. And the 
enormous and easy profits bred corruption all around. 
This corruption by and by penetrated even the govern- 



272 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

ment offices, in Austria as well as in Hungary. A number 
of highly sensational scandals grew out of this. Again 
our refugees from Galicia were in all this kneedeep. The 
banks, even some of the largest, became involved and 
began to share in the gigantic proceeds. Thus, the AU- 
gemeine Verkehrsbank (a big institution having connec- 
tions with high finance) went into some of the schemes, 
notably of furnishing war material to the Ministry of 
War in Vienna as well as in Budapest. The president 
of it finally was sentenced to nine months* jail and a fine 
of K. 200,000 for illegal and fraudulent practices and 
misrepresentations. The secretary of war for both 
countries. General von Krobatin, became a victim to this 
orgy of swindles, and had to resign. In Budapest some 
ten altogether, amongst them two members of parlia- 
ment, three section chiefs in the ministry of interior, and 
several high officers in the national army, were convicted 
of being bribed in the matter of furnishing shoes, horses, 
etc., for war purposes, and were disgraced. The cancer 
of corruption ate deep into official life. Although the 
main foodstuffs in Austria between October 1914 and 
August 1916 rose to three times their original prices, 
speculation in a number of specialties often drove prices 
up to twentyfold, even fiftyf old what they had been. But 
it was not alone in food speculation that corruption was 
practised in high places. 

One of the most widespread swindles was, for instance, 
connected with the summoning of men to the army. As 
the war progressed and losses through bullet or illness at 
the front became more and more frightful and these 
losses even became exaggerated by going from mouth to 
mouth, disinclination to serve became more general. This 
was most the case in Bohemia. And one day two sly 
young Jews, Galician refugees, were caught at a game 



BEFUGE CAMPS AND BAEEACK TOWNS 273 

which had. cost the army no less than about 400 soldiers. 
The game was simplicity itself, and probably the more 
successful on that account. One of the two had formed 
a connection in that department of the ministry of war 
charged with the calling in and choosing of new men for 
the army. Prom his official friend he procured all the 
detailed information he needed, as names, residence, age, 
etc., etc., of such of the men summoned who were able 
and willing to pay a goodly sum to escape military duty. 
And on the day when the '^Musterung'^ (examination) of 
the recruits in that particular district took place, the 
second Jew, representing the man really called, came 
forth with all the information needed and the "papers" 
of the real party. Invariably this man was rejected as 
unfit for military duty. And this was not wonderful, 
either. For he, the locum tenens, had a number of seri- 
ous physical defects. He next collected his ''fee,*' rang- 
ing between $400 and $2,000, according to the financial 
means of the young man lucky enough to escape. The 
two young Hebrews and their confederate in the war de- 
partment had reaped a golden harvest totaling about 
$150,000, as appeared subsequently during court proceed- 
ings. They are now serving, all three of them, but not at 
the front. This case, however, was but one of many. 
Ever since the Eussians first swept over Galicia, and a 
great hegira took place of all the foot-loose and timid, or 
else specially enterprising Israelites, the courts all over 
the monarchy have been kept busy with investigating and 
judging crimes and misdemeanours for which these fugi- 
tives stood sponsors. Such a fine oportunity of mak- 
ing hay while the sun shines will probably never 
come in their way again. And so they are making the 
most of it. Of the so-called *'war millionaires," or 
**war sharks" — ^men suddenly grown rich out of war 



274 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

spoils — tMs contingent of Galician Jews lias fumislied a 
very large number. They became familiar figures at tlie 
Imperial opera house, where they and their ladies, clad 
in priceless furs and rubies and diamonds, held grandly 
forth in the boxes. The jewelry shops in Vienna, after 
being afraid for a short time of having to close up, 
never have done such a rushing, profitable business as 
since the fall of 1914. 

However, it would be going entirely too far to create 
the impression that all the 800,000 fugitives from Galicia, 
or even the larger part of them, were persons of that 
calibre. That is by no means true. Many thousands of 
poor Jews fled because death and torture were staring 
them in the face by remaining. The lot of those Jews 
either unable to flee or else unwilling to leave their pos- 
sessions to the tender mercies of the Russians, was not 
a happy one, as the facts became generally known after 
the return of the Austrian authorities late in 1915. And 
there were many thousands of the higher-class Poles 
likewise among the refugees. The latter, of course, could 
pass their exile in more or less comfort in Vienna, in 
Cracow, or elsewhere. Many of them went to Switzer- 
land. The great bulk of the Galician fugitives, however, 
were without means and dependent on government sup- 
port. Those who did not go to Vienna for the purpose 
of asking aid, were mostly concentrated in a few large 
barrack camps that came to be erected in suitable locali- 
ties in Moravia and Bohemia. These camps were in 
most respects similar to the one described by me above. 
But in addition to operating there all sorts of industrial 
and manufacturing shops, such as chair, furniture, can- 
ning, hardware, etc., the Austrian government erected 
also munitions and arms works in which such of the re- 
fugees as were physically able could find employment at 



EEFUGE CAMPS AND BAERACK TOWNS 275 

fair wages. The youth of both sexes in these camps 
have, besides, had an opportunity of acquiring a decent 
schooling. In the schools established there were taught 
the ordinary branches of a common school education : a 
fair knowledge of German, the three R's, some history 
and geography. The pupils taught were nearly all from 
the towns of Eastern Galicia. In that district there are 
towns of 10,000 or 20,000 made up 75 or 80 per cent, of 
Jews, and amongst them often there would scarcely be 
any knowing anything but Hebrew wisdom — ^Yiddish and 
the Talmud. For that class of the population their tem- 
porary flight and residence in another province where 
they have learned some useful book knowledge and a 
trade besides, will later in many cases prove a veritable 
blessing. 



CHAPTER XVII 

VISITS TO WAB PRISONEES 

More than a million cared for by Austria-Hungary — ^A day with the 
Don Cossacks — ^At the camp near Bruck, Austria — Singing with 
the accompaniment of the balalaika — Home ! the word thrills even 
these fierce warriors — Seeing the big camp at Gyor, Hungary — A 
race riot between Russians and Servians — "Brothers !" he said, and 
then he fell pierced by a bullet — The great plot for liberation of 
Russians at Eger, Bohemia — ^Miscarried because of betrayal — Gen- 
eral guiding principles — Hygiene and epidemics — Food question 
caused most trouble — Employment of prisoners by civilians — Aid- 
ing in the hair^est season — Glee clubs — Film theatres — ^Russians 
toiling in the vineyards in Austria and near Tokay, Hungary — ■ 
Low mortality figures — ^Muscovites amazed at the "humped soil" in 
mountainous Austria — Building and repairing highroads and rail- 
ways neal* the Italian front — A meeting between Italian and Rus- 
sian prisoners — Officers had to be kept apart from men — Hard 
labour in the Bohemian collieries — Homicidal record — At the de- 
tention camp for civilians — Number of them rather small — Red 
Cross woii — ^A report disallowed by the late Czar. 

Sergei Ilyitch sat stmnmiing his balalaika in a 
dreamy, listless manner, and the sturdy Cossack tower- 
ing by his side sang in a velvet voice a home ditty of as 
many stanzas (evidently some of his own improvising) 
as he had inches. The burden of his lay ran about in this 
wise: 

Brothers, far by the Don is my izba, 
My izba in the shade of the linden tree. 
(Hum, hum, hui'-r-r-r!) 
276 



VISITS TO WAR PEISONERS 277 

And tlie blossoms they spread sweet odour, 
Odour that spreads far, far away. 
(Hum, hum, hur-r-r-r!) 

Ah, ye brothers, when shall we see again 
Our humble izba, our village, our linden tree ? 
When shall we hear again the bees buzzing ? 
When, oh when shall we meet our dear ones ? 
(Hum, hum, hur-r-r-r! Hur-r-r-r, twang!) 

The birches white by the rambling brook 

(Hum, hum, hur-r-r-r!) 
Grreen and silvery fair, 

(Hum, hum, hur-r-r-r!) 
I see it all before my eyes, 
Ai, ai, the world is wide. 

(Hum, hum, hur-r-r-r!) 

Why did our Little Father the Czar 
Send us to this cruel, cruel war ? 

(Hur-r-r-r! Hur-r-r-r! Hur-r-r-r!) 
Why did he tell us : Slay and burn ? 
What matters it to us at all ? 

(Hum, hum, hur-r-r-r!) 

Thus Prokop Vlasoff, the tall Cossack, in Ms rich bari- 
tone, and as he sang the tears were slowly coursing" 
adown his grimy face. Home ! The word thrilled them* 
all, and at the end of every stanza the throng of giants, 
uncouth, unkempt, fierce of mien, set up a howl in chorus, 
much like the yelping of prairie wolves, dismal to listen 
to. There might have been some fifty in this crowd. 
All Cossacks from the Don Eiver, among the wildest and 
most untamed. Yet at this moment the primeval in- 
stinct, the longing for home and kindred, made them in- 
tensely human. 

These Cossacks belonged to a sotnia which had been 
captured near RadautZj Bukovina, on a foraging expedi- 



278 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

tion and bronglit into this camp but the day before. It 
was near Bruck, on the Leitha, close to the Hungarian 
border, where altogether some 30,000 Russian captives 
were confined. "With the approval of Count Berchtold, 
at that time the foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, I 
formed part of an investigating committee, made up of 
correspondents from neutral countries, inspecting a num- 
ber of war prisoners' camps. It was a very thorough 
and painstaking inspection, too. Nothing was hidden. 
There were among us men from Spanish-speaking coun- 
tries, as well as from English, French and German speak- 
ing ones, and there were some from the frozen Scandi- 
navian north; and by word of mouth the prisoners 'were 
allowed to tell us their grievances, whatever they were. 
There were many such. Those about food were by far 
the most frequent — about insufficient food, unaccustomed 
food, food not cooked to their liking; about alleged 
spoiled or tainted food, about unfair distribution of it; 
about favouritism shown, about thefts of food, etc., etc. 
They were interminable, these stories about food from 
the poor fellows. All these complaints that permitted 
instant putting to the proof were looked into on the spot. 
And in nearly every instance it was found that these 
complaints were based on misunderstanding, or on un- 
reasonable demands, or else that the circumstances of the 
case did not permit a change. But then, who could blame 
the poor fellows ! In war times, and more especially in 
all prison camps, the stomach is indeed found the most 
important organ of the body. 

Poor fellows! I said. Of course, poor fellows. All 
prisoners of war are that, under any and all circum- 
stances. But many of these poor fellows, when free, had 
been cut-throats, ruffians, especially the Cossacks. It 
appears that by one of the many curious blunders of 



VISITS TO WAR PRISONEES 279 

which this endless war has hatched a legion or so, in 
some western countries the Cossacks are regarded as 
among the elite of the Muscovite army. The reverse is 
true. Russian soldiers of the line scorn and abhor them. 
When confronted with evidence of special ruthlessness, 
of horrible cruelties committed by Russian troops, these 
men of the line or of some guard regiment will almost in- 
variably make reply: ''The work of the Cossacks. What 
else can you expect?'* For the Cossacks have their own 
peculiar standing. Since the beginning of this mighty 
struggle between East and West some two millions of 
Cossacks have been mobilised — ^hailing from the Don and 
Dnieper, the Kuban, the Dniester, from Siberia and the 
Ural settlements. All of them must supply their own 
horses and equipment and receive no pay whatever from 
the master in Petrograd. They must live on plunder 
and robbery, on torture and murder, on rapine and arson. 
And they do. When this sotnia of them was brought 
in on the day previous a curious spectacle could be wit- 
nessed. 

The men were surrounded by a cordon of Austrian, 
soldiers, and on an extensive grassplat the Cossacks were 
made to disgorge — one by one. It was all piled up in 
the centre in a huge heap. Such a collection ! Not even 
Uncle Simpson of the Three Golden Balls at any time 
had such a variety of valuables under his roof. From 
their long kaftans, from their high boots, from pockets 
specially constructed to hide it, from their kalpaks, from 
everywhere, they dug out the booty and threw it on the 
heap ; gold and silver watches and chains, money in coin, 
jewelry, clocks, gilt or solid silver vessels, plate, goblets, 
costly furs, etc., etc. Many objects glittering, but of lit- 
tle intrinsic value. As each man disrobed and gave up he 
made a wry face. For he relinquished the fruits of this 



280 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIEE 

war, his wages, Ms gains tliat he had built air castles on 
against the days peace should reign once more. He had 
come into the ring a man of great bulk, baggy, bloated. 
He came out slim and gaunt like a greyhound. 

That is one of the peculiar features of the war with 
Russia — the immense number of nationalities, races, 
creeds, all masquerading under the name of ''Russians." 
Think of it — 128 varieties! Among them many practi- 
cally unknown, like the Bashkirs and Mordvinians, the 
Ossetians and Kalmucks. At the huge camp of There- 
sienstadt, Bohemia, I saw specimens of nearly every one 
of these 128 tribes — many slant-eyed and Mongolian in 
features, many pagan, many absolutely without a ves- 
tige of civilisation. 

Withal, in captivity they behave fairly well for the 
most part. Each section of the camp, each tent and bar- 
rack, each hut or log house they are housed in there is 
a sort of elder, a pristav, put at the head, held responsi- 
ble for the men under him and therefore invested with 
a certain disciplinary power. Theft is the most common 
vice among them. They pilfer one and all, if but a crust 
of bread or a morsel of sausage. For the Russian is vo- 
racious. His appetite is unappeasable. If he can he 
will devour three big loaves of bread a day. All his 
earnings go for food. Bread is his favourite food; that 
and stchee (cabbage soup) and grits (called: horsht) 
made into a thick pap or mush. He is after solids. 

Yes, pity apart, it is the stomach that the captive is 
most troubled with in this war. Above all, if he is in 
the hands of the semi-starving nations making up the Cen- 
tral Powers. To repeated objections on the score of in- 
sufficient food (which would be a clear violation of in- 
ternational agreements) which Russia particularly pre- 
ferred through the medium of neutral governments, Aus- 



VISITS TO WAE PEISONEES 281 

tria-Hungary made reply that inasmuch as England and 
France, Russia's allies, were themselves responsible for 
the hunger blockade used against the Central Powers as 
a measure of war, it would be manifestly impossible, and 
unfair to her own population to boot, were she to feed 
her enemy prisoners more liberally. Proof was fur- 
nished repeatedly that the rations dealt out to Russian 
prisoners were equal in bulk to those which the hard- 
labouring classes of Austria-Hungary themselves re- 
ceived. But Russia always professed dissatisfaction with 
these attempts at justification and went on spreading the 
news that Austria-Hungary deliberately starved her 
prisoners of war. 

At the camp in Bruck and subsequently at those oth- 
ers I visited (some of them several times), at Laden- 
burg, Austria, Gyor, Hungary, Theresienstadt and Eger, 
Bohemia, and at the small detention camp near Wels, 
Upper Austria, I invariably found that indeed the food 
was scant for able-bodied men, but that it was equal in 
bulk to what her own working civilians had, and that as 
far as quality and cooking went no fault could reasonably 
be found. Indeed, as to the latter item, great indulgence 
was shown. Prisoners were told off in groups; nearly 
always some trusted man amongst them was held respon- 
sible for a fair division ; and the cooking was left to the 
prisoners themselves. Thus it was that the Russians got 
regularly their simple favourite dishes — their cabbage 
soup and thick grits, their peas and beans made into a 
flabby mush, and their coarse rye bread ; the Italian pris- 
oners their polenta (a stiff maize pap), spaghetti and 
tomato sauce, even long after most Austrians themselves 
were unable to procure such delicacies in the open mar- 
ket; and the Servians got their paritza and the Ruma^ 
nians their mamaliga. 



282 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

Everywhere I found that the chief sin committed by 
the war prisoners was pilfering food from their fellows. 
At the camp in Theresienstadt I happened to witness the 
arrival of a new big batch of prisoners — about 6,000 of 
them. These were apportioned among the existing divi- 
sions. The latter ran in alphabetical order. I was pres- 
ent when the inmates of one little barrack greeted about 
a dozen of the new arrivals. The pristav went up to the 
leader of this dozen, a sergeant, made a sweeping motion 
with his hand saluting him, and then kissed him on the 
forehead and twice on each cheek, saying the while: 
''Little brother, thou art welcome. Thou art here among 
friends, among brothers. We are all orthodox Russians. 
We mean to be good to thee. Art thou hungry ? Thirsty 1 
Speak the truth. Don't be bashful." And the new 
brother then did some kissing on his own part and was 
at once made to feel at home; food was placed before 
him ; he was asked where he had been taken prisoner and 
under what circumstances and how many with him ; how 
the war was progressing and if there was not yet any 
sign of approaching peace; and what news he brought 
with him from the outside world. It was quite touching; 
these men were evidently all good fellows ; simple-mind- 
ed, full of affection for the new man who was, however, a 
villainous-looking lout. Next day I heard that this same 
sergeant, the new arrival, one Trif on Arkhanoff, had dur- 
ing the night stolen a whole loaf off his comrades, and 
got a good beating for it. 

One of the Austrian officers in command of this camp. 
Major Beck, told me astounding things about the voracity 
of his Russian prisoners. All their earnings by extra la- 
bour, all they could beg or steal, went for more food. 
Five pounds of bread one of them had eaten at one sit- 
ting — soggy, half-baked bread (made by the Russians 



VISITS TO WAR PEISONERS 283 

themselves) ; that he had kept at it — ^munching, munch- 
ing; had filled himself until he had vomited, and then 
had begun anew. He claimed that the natural appetite of 
an average Russian was fully twice as big as that of an 
Austrian soldier. The Italians, on the other hand, are 
much more abstemious in their diet, as are all Latins. 
And within their ranks thefts of food are not nearly so 
common. That is in a measure also true of the Servians, 
whereas the Rumanians are nearly as bad as their neigh- 
bours, the Russians. "With both Russians and Ruma- 
nians (of course this refers to the peasant class only) it 
is a sign of appeased hunger, of satisfaction with the 
meal and with the hospitality shown, to grunt very au- 
dibly. 

When I visited the big Hungarian camp at Gryor where 
some 65,000 Russians and Servians were confined, a race 
riot had just been suppressed with some loss of life. 
"Whatever it may be outside, certainly these two, Rus- 
sians and Servians, did not harmonise when confined 
together. Observing them it does not seem astonishing, 
for they differ greatly. The Russian remains under all 
circumstances placid and of easy good nature, whereas 
the Servian is morose, haughty and aggressive. For all 
they are both Slavs, nobody would think them of the 
same race — the Servian with his hawk-like face, aquiline 
nose, ebon hair and flashing, sombre eyes; the Russian 
with his high cheekbones, bulbous nose, blue eyes and 
hair of straw colour. So these two races had agreed to 
disagree from their first hour in camp. Several times 
there had been bloody feuds fought out. And on the day 
in question news had come in of a new Russian disaster 
at the front, and this had led a Servian stump speaker 
and pothouse politician (of whom there are many hail- 
ing from the shores of the Drina and Save) to make some 



284 AUSTBIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

very slighting remarks about Muscovite valour and 
fighting capacity. A riot ensued, and before the Hun- 
garian commander in charge of the whole camp could 
prevent it, quite a slaughter had taken place among the 
contending forces. The Servians fought with their 
knives and several Russians, disembowelled, strewed the 
bloody ground. A score of others were seriously wound- 
ed. When at last, that is, at the expiration of about 
fifteen minutes, a detachment of the Hungarian guards 
interfered with guns loaded, there was no other way to 
stop the row than shoot to kill. And it so happened that 
one of the great Panslavic enthusiasts in the camp, a 
Russian named Arsen KalidaefiP, was the first to fall. 
He had, in fact, just mounted a wagon whence he was 
shrieking at the crowd, trying to pacify them. *' Broth- 
ers," he shouted, ''brothers — Slavic brothers" — and that 
is as far as he got when the bullet out of a Hungarian 
rifle hit him and killed him instantly. The usual fate of 
the peacemaker. After that the Russians and Servians 
were kept strictly apart. Even at work they were not 
allowed to mingle. 

This race riot at the camp of Gryor was one of the few 
serious affairs of the kind. But in all the other camps 
it was noted that the Servians were the most intractable. 
They did not get on any better with the Italians when 
the experiment was tried. At the largest camp for war 
prisoners, that of Theresienstadt, after a few unpleas- 
ant experiences of the same kind, all the other prisoners 
were transferred elsewhere and only Russians retained. 
Of course, these things were not published in the Vienna 
newspapers, and it is very possible that other similar 
events may have occurred, but the only really serious 
plot among the war prisoners of which I heard was that 
at the camp near Eger, a town of some importance in 



VISITS TO WAE PEISONEES 285 

northwestern Bohemia. That owed its inception to a 
number of Russian officers who were, some of them, in 
the camp itself, while the greater number had been con- 
fined in more pleasant quarters, a chateau of some pre- 
tension owned by Count Dittrichstein and situated but 
about a mile from the camp itself. These officers had 
been allowed considerable latitude, although none of them 
had passed his word not to engage in plots of escape, 
etc. Eger is close to the Bavarian border, and across 
it were residing some Russian ladies whom the German 
authorities had not interned on account of their sup- 
posed harmlessness. Some of the officers met these la- 
dies, and with their active aid and financial assistance 
the whole conspiracy was hatched. This in the main con- 
sisted in the plan to overpower, at a given signal, the 
guards, slay those that resisted, seize the guns and other 
weapons obtainable, together with the funds kept at the 
office of the commander, and prevent telephone or tele- 
graphic calls for reinforcements. Then to leave the 
camp in a body and escape across the line into nearby 
Bavaria, with a relatively safe itinerary to Switzerland 
mapped out. Civilian clothes had been procured, dis- 
tributed and stored up, and all the other preparations 
nearly completed when one of the Russian officers in the 
plot himself betrayed it, in a fit of drunken bravado, to 
his host at the chateau. "Whereupon immediate steps 
were taken, and the projected adventure nipped in the 
bud. It would have been a rather serious matter if it had 
been allowed to mature. Some 75,000 men were at that 
time in that one camp. These under the lead of about 
350 of their officers might have proved quite formidable 
to overcome. 

As a general thing, however, the Russian officers did 
not agree well with their men, and it was found best on 



286 'AUSTRIA-HUNG AEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

all accounts to keep them separate. And while the men, 
as a rule, displayed all the long-suffering patience of 
their race, it was otherwise with the officers. These were 
for the most part insolent and exacting, unreasonable 
in their demands as to the treatment due them, and ex- 
pected to continue, as prisoners of war, a life of de- 
bauchery and general worthlessness. Doubtless there 
were many exceptions. But I speak of the rule. The 
Austrian and still more the Hungarian government be- 
haved to them, especially in the earlier part of the war, 
with great indulgence. They were shown every consid- 
eration. The pay they promptly received every month 
was much higher than that paid imprisoned Austrian 
and Hungarian officers in Russia, and they were granted 
a reasonable amount of freedom in their motions and 
occupations. But those privileges were in many cases 
grossly abused. And to maintain any discipline amongst 
them at all was very difficult. In most cases constant 
drinking, gaming and love-making was their idea of war 
imprisonment. At Neulenggbach, a fine estate placed by 
its Austrian owner at the disposal of the government for 
the confinement of a large number of Russian officers, the 
custody in which they were kept was of such a mild de- 
scription that the ''prisoners" would usually spend their 
days and nights in nearby Vienna, in civilian clothes eas- 
ily obtained, indulging to the full in all the dissipations 
of a big and luxurious city. "When this finally was 
stopped the Russians were forever invading the rural 
parts in the vicinity of Neulenggbach, seeking their prey 
among the "disconsolate" grass widows whose husbands 
were at the front fighting the brethren of their adorers. 
The thing became so notorious and such a public scandal 
that at last the joint minister of war, Krobatin, was com- 
pelled to interfere and issue strict commands to abate 



VISITS TO WAR PEISONEES 287 

the nuisance. Among these gay Lotharios among the 
Russian officers were many belonging to the highest fami- 
lies of Petrograd and the Czarish court circles, and I 
suppose the more recent news from home, telling them 
of the revolutionary upheaval, must have proved most 
unpleasant and inauspicious to them. Observing these 
titled good-for-nothings in their relations with their men, 
the humble moujiks in uniform, was scarcely ever a 
pleasant spectacle. Even while in captivity themselves 
they treated the poor devils like the dirt under their feet 
and addressed them as dumb slaves and common cannon 
fodder. I recall a little scene of such brutality in the 
spring of 1915. It was at Theresienstadt. There, it must 
be owned, were herded any number of unfortunate speci- 
mens belonging to the scores of subject races of Russia 
— ^Mongolians and Tungooses with slant eyes and hardly 
above the scale of cattle ; Ostyaks and Bashkirs from Si- 
beria's arctic regions, and so forth. A young lieutenant 
belonging to one of the Petrograd crack regiments hap- 
pened to pass along a group of these heathen ''fellow 
citizens," and they heedlessly did not salute him defer- 
entially enough. Instantly the young sprig seized a cane 
from a nearby crippled soldier, and began to belabour 
the culprits. He spat in their faces and struck at them 
with all his might, drawing blood and wounding several 
of them. When he at last stopped, he smiled and turned 
to an Austrian guard who had watched the scene with 
bewilderment. "These hounds must be taught their 
duty," he then remarked coolly and stroUed off. 

Speaking generally, the Austrians and Hungarians 
treated their war prisoners as humanely and even as gen- 
erously as circumstances would permit. Cruelty is not 
in the nature of either of these two nations. I have seen 
from them many evidences of fine compassion and sym- 



288 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

pathy with these wards of war. Making due allowance 
for the fact that the Dual Monarchy was herself in a bad, 
a desperate plight, throughout this long war, and that in 
the matter of foodstuffs she was most decidedly short, 
no reasonable person could find fault on the whole with 
the treatment accorded the enormous army of 1,100,000 
of her war prisoners. There was never any attempt 
made to cover up deficiencies. Neutral delegations were 
frequently allowed to investigate for themselves, and 
Red Cross commissions both from Russia and neutral 
countries were freely admitted to camps and hospitals. 
On one occasion, in the spring of 1916, Russia, after a 
long delay and a series of evasive replies, agreed at last 
to a mutual thorough inspection of prisoners of war. 
On either side a delegation, composed of a score of Red 
Cross ladies belonging to the highest families of the land, 
was picked. The Princess Montenuovo headed the dele- 
gation on the Austrian side, and the Princess Narish- 
kine, a relative of the ex-Czar, the Russian. But while on 
the Austrian side every courtesy and every facility to 
ensure a thorough investigation of the whole subject was 
willingly granted, the contrary was true in Russia. The 
old emperor, Francis Joseph, personally received the 
Princess Narishkine and her ladies, and assured her that 
not only would they be authorised to go anywhere in pur- 
suance of their task, but that any improvements sug- 
gested by them should have a sympathetic hearing. Well, 
the Russian ladies saw all there was to be seen. They 
penetrated everywhere, without let or hindrance. They 
were given unrestricted intercourse with the prisoners. 
And when -they left, after a kind farewell audience with 
the monarch, they had hardly anything to express in the 
way of wishes that could be realised in the treatment of 
their unfortunate fellow-countrymen. But in Russia the 



VISITS TO WAR PRISONERS 289 

Austrian delegation did not fare so well. There they 
were prevented, even by force, from visiting just those 
places where they had been told the prisoners were dealt 
with most rigorously. Nevertheless, within the narrow 
limits permitted them, they did their duty, and on return- 
ing to Vienna drew up a very full and comprehensive ac- 
count in which they gave with due exactness facts, dates, 
figures. Their report was so made as not to draw down 
unnecessarily the ire of the Czarish government, but yet 
specific enough to show how very remiss Russia had 
been in caring adequately for her huge body of Austro- 
Hungarian war prisoners. And the Russian delegation? 
Princess Narishkine, before leaving Austria, had shown 
her notes and the outlines of her report to a number of 
reputable witnesses in Vienna. But not a line, not a 
single word, of her report ever appeared in print after 
her return to Petrograd. The contrast would have been 
too glaring. On the other hand, right after her return 
and for some time after, the Russian press, on orders 
from above, waxed indignant at the ' ' unspeakable cruel- 
ties" practised on ''poor defenceless prisoners" by Aus- 
tria-Hungary. It was an amazing case of Punic faith. 

From personal inspection and according to all accounts 
received by me, the government of Austria-Hungary 
had been most careful, while choosing sites for and erect- 
ing prisoners' camps, to make sure of the following five 
points : (1) To locate them in salubrious spots; (2) have 
an abundance of pure, running water, and to have per- 
fect ventilation; (3) have the dwellings of every descrip- 
tion warm, weather-tight and fitted up hygienically ; (4) 
have all needful sanitary arrangements, preventive and 
curative, so as to make epidemics impossible; (5) have 
able medical superintendence, including a laboratory on 
the place. By adhering strictly to this plan the rate of 



290 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

mortality has been kept from the start to a wonderfully- 
low figure — in most of them at three to four per 1,000; 
and the spread of infectious diseases of all kinds has been 
kept down. The great bulk of her war prisoners being 
Russian, I will mention that amongst those, coming in 
from the front in Galicia and Bukovina, there was at 
first a frightful prevalence of such contagious diseases 
as spotted typhoid, scarlatina, smallpox, bubonic pest, 
dysentery, cholera, and, above all, of syphilis and vene- 
real disorders. Up to the winter of 1914-15 this had 
spread in the camps and among the surrounding civilian 
population, even Vienna getting her share of the infec- 
tion. Deaths by hundreds occurred, notably from ty- 
phoid. Then the Austro-Hungarian ministry of war 
quickly established several sanitary central control sta- 
tions. These were fitted out with a staff of competent 
specialists, nurses, and every precaution needful, and 
were placed just on the borders of the Carpathians. 
Thereafter, before any Russian prisoner was allowed to 
proceed to one of the camps he had been under medical 
observation and furnished with a clean bill of health. 
"Within a short while these precautionary measures bore 
fruit. No more infections in the hinterland; no more 
germs of disease brought into camps. As to one of the 
chief requisites for health, an unlimited supply of good 
drinking water was amply secured in all the camps. At 
the big camp of Gyor, for example, the daily supply of 
water available for each person was 180 liters (about 47 
gallons) of the finest spring water. In Theresienstadt, 
Eger, Ladenburg and Bruck there is connected with each 
block of dwelling barracks a huge bathing hall, where 
both cold and hot water is furnished ad libitum to the 
bather, and this both summer and winter. The organi- 
sation of the whole elaborate system of preventive hy- 



VISITS TO WAR PRISONERS 291 

giene in all the camps (some 50, from the last available 
data) had been entrusted to Prof. Dr. Schober, one of 
Vienna's best men in that line, and he certainly achieved 
wonders, at small expense, too, but by means of unceas- 
ing vigilance. The low death rate (3 to 4 per 1,000, 
against a death rate from five to ten times as large in 
the leading Russian cities in peace times) would be 
almost past belief, especially when comparing it with 
that obtaining in our own Civil War, when it rose as high 
as 65 in Libby Prison, for instance, were it not for the 
high state of modem hygienic science and practice. 

However, hygiene is not everything. Body and mind, 
to keep in good condition, require also cheerful sur- 
roundings. And that, of course, it was not possible to 
give. The Russians suffered most from homesickness. 
The suicides that did occur among them (during the first 
twelvemonth about fifty such cases were reported) were 
nearly all owing to that mental complaint. Later on 
things were better, for harmless methods of recreation 
were introduced at all the camps, such as moving picture 
shows, vaudeville, dance halls, amateur concerts, chorus 
singing, etc. In Theresienstadt camp there were at one 
time no fewer than six such places of entertainment go- 
ing. Among the Russian moujiks there are, hidden away 
among their straggling villages far from civilisation, 
many wonderful voices. Whoever has heard the church 
choir sing the Easter hymn at St. Isaac's Cathedral in 
Petrograd — a choir made up wholly of one-time mou- 
jiks — ^will easily credit that. Such bass voices as are 
existing in Russia by the hundreds, unknown to the 
world, voices untutored and just in the rough, yet voices 
mellow, sonorous, thrilling, probably exist nowhere 
else. And during this war, in these wretched prisoners ' 
camps, these voices, or some of them, came out to bring 



292 AUSTRIA-HUNG AEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

comfort to the souls of these poor fellows. Any number 
of quartettes, glee clubs, of big choruses, of groups that 
had come together in haphazard fashion, formed there. 
And they all sang the quaint, compelling, melancholy 
folk airs of the vast steppe; of the Muscovy of old — 
often sang them to bring tears to the eye of the listener. 
But I must not omit touching on one particular fea- 
ture of the Russian captive's life in this connection, 
namely, the employment of gangs of them by private 
civilians or the State. For all such work they were paid ; 
at a rather low rate, it is true, and part of their wages 
was kept back by the authorities as a precautionary 
measure against escape. Still they were paid, and that 
meant much to them. It enabled them to purchase to- 
bacco, warm underclothing, newspapers, illustrated peri- 
odicals, and a lot of other things, especially extra food. 
Talking of escapes, though, brings to mind the fact that 
a great many did escape, after all, though relatively few 
managed to reach finally the shelter of the nearest neu- 
tral country — ^in this case Switzerland. I recall the case 
of one such Russian, a skilled mechanic at home, who 
succeeded in evading pursuit during his long itinerary 
from Linz, Austria, to Bregenz, just on the border of 
Switzerland. And there, as ill luck would have it, he 
was caught in midlake — ^he tried to swim across that edge 
of Lake Constance — ^by a vigilant Austrian customs offi- 
cer. Four weeks he had been on his flight ; the nights he 
had slowly crept onwards through dark woods and along 
little trodden paths, and days he had slept in the under- 
brush or in a deserted cabin. Another case, but one 
more successful, was that of a little band of five, who 
had broken out of their labour camp in the Tyrol, lived 
by plundering huts whose inmates were temporarily ab- 
sent, had robbed a forest guard of his guns and other 



VISITS TO WAE PEISONERS 293 

weapons, and had finally crossed over into Italian terri- 
tory. Probably a thousand or two such escapes were 
attempted, and not more than five in a hundred suc- 
ceeded. In most instances it was the pathetic ignorance 
of these men which doomed the attempt to failure from 
the start. For, as a rule, they knew absolutely nothing 
of the geography of the country against which they had 
helped to make war. Austria was to the low-class Rus- 
sian only another name for Germany, for he noticed all 
these people spoke German. So they were to him ' ' Ne- 
meo" (German), and Vienna he confused with Berlin, 
and believed that Russia began ''just over there." In 
a few cases they had one of their old Russian school 
maps along. On that Russia was immense, as indeed it 
is, and Austria just a tiny spot on the map, ''just a flea- 
bite," as one of them expressed it. And so he thought 
that within a few hours, or at most a couple of days,, he 
would find himself in dear old Russia, Mamushka Ros- 
sya, again. And so they had been caught, nine out of 
ten. 

But life for those of them who hired out for some sort 
of civilian employ was not so hard. They enjoyed a sort 
of liberty. They were treated with considerable for- 
bearance. The Austrian or Hungarian peasant whose 
crop he helped to bring in and put in the barn soon had 
the measure of these Russians. When treated kindly 
there was no harm in him, provided he was kept away 
from strong drink. Austrian beer he liked, but found 
very expensive, but Austrian wines he did not care for — ■ 
"too sour," he said, and began to talk in broken German 
of the heady, sweetish wine of his own Caucasus. He 
was sent up to the vineyards, too ; in the vicinity of Vi- 
enna, at one time, there must have been several thou- 
sands of Russian soldiers getting in the vintage of 1915 ;, 



294 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

and in Hungary's famous wine district, the Hegyalla, 
and around Tokay, he also toiled, cutting grapes in the 
fall, grafting and trimming in the spring. What he 
didn't understand, this moujik used to the level plains 
of central or southern Russia, was the "humped soil" 
(as he termed it) of Austria. All these mountains made 
him tired. He looked upon them not only as rank nui- 
sances, but as a positive detriment to the country. And 
in a way he was right in his primitive philosophy. With 
these Austrian and Hungarian peasants he felt easy — ■ 
they were of his own ilk. He could fathom their mo- 
tives; he could understand their lives. They were not 
**panye" people (lords), and he soon grew familiar with 
them and they with him. The little ones of his employ- 
ers he grew very fond of, as a rule. He would dandle 
them on his lap and hum Russian cradle songs to them ; 
he would carve them bows and arrows to play with. He 
would learn enough German and Hungarian in a short 
while to converse, to make comparisons with home. He 
could never be made to understand why it was necessary 
to work so hard, so hurriedly. ''Enough to eat," that 
was what he said was enough for anybody. And if he was 
musical and could touch his balalaika (a rather primi- 
tive sort of guitar, more like a banjo), and among the 
gangs of ten or twenty or fifty that he worked with, in 
most cases there would always be some that could do 
this, why, then, he would play and sing of an evening 
seated on his haunches at the barn door. So the moujik 
whose name was legion doubtless enjoyed himself after 
a fashion toiling in the fields and vineyards of the foe 
that he had one day left home to do battle with. And 
mighty few attempts at escape were made by him from 
such easy and rather sympathetic quarters. He ate with 
his hosts at the same table and cracked rustic jokes and 



VISITS TO WAR PRISONERS 295 

spoke of the peace that was surely coming and that would 
take him home again to his little Sasha or Misha or 
Aliosha. Sometimes he would pull out a picture of his 
boy at home — a picture he wore at a string — and praise 
him and read the last letter from home over and over 
and over again. These letters from home ! I had some 
specimens translated to me, letters written from the 
heart of Russia, not from her savage wastes. There is 
a curious eastern ceremoniousness about them, entirely 
different from similar letters written by American farm- 
ers ' wives. The letter invariably would start out in this 
wise: 

'' Honoured Ivan Ivanovitch, my esteemed husband: 
I, Eudoxia Paulovna, bow to the ground, very deeply. 
For the pope (priest) who has read me your last letter, 
has told me how you are thinking of us, of me, your 
humble spouse, and of your father, Ivan Alexeitch, and 
of your sister, Natalia Ivanovna, day and night . . . ' * 

And in this strain, intensely respectful, it would go 
on, until the real family and village news came to be re- 
tailed, when the letter would relate that the brindled 
cow had calved; that one of the oxen had been sold to 
the government at a good round price ; how a neighbour 
had done not nearly so well with the cattle and the pig 
he had driven to market, etc., etc., etc. And this letter, 
the last one, our friend in the custody of the Austrian 
farmer's wife had read to a shred. And mostly he would 
groan, nearly every day: *'No mail. No mail. I won- 
der if the mail is still going. Or perhaps peace is al- 
ready declared, only we don 't know it here in this comer 
of the world." 

But all the Russian prisoners of war did not help the 
farmers of Austria and Hungary getting in their crops. 
Many more thousands were employed road building 



296 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

and repairing ; toiling in the coal and iron mines of Bo- 
hemia or Styria; laying tracks on short auxiliary rail- 
way lines behind the Italian front; felling trees in the 
woods, and work of other description. This work was 
not moujik work, and to do it other Russians were 
picked out — miners and day labourers, mechanics and 
machinists, and they were under much stricter surveil- 
lance and not so tolerantly and patriarchally treated. 
They laboured, however, honestly, but very slowly. 
Their deliberateness of motion was a standing joke. But 
they were fed more abundantly than their fellows in 
camp, and did not give much trouble, as a general thing. 
Now and then rather comical situations would develop. 
I recall one day returning from the Doberdo front. The 
Italians had kept up a drum fire on a certain sector, and 
the thing was becoming uncomfortable for a mere civil- 
ian like myself. Several miles behind the front I met a 
procession of Italian soldiers, just taken prisoner by 
the Austrians, and while resting a spell, listened to the 
examination an Austrian officer from the general staff 
was putting some of the more intelligent of his prison- 
ers through. One of the Italians, a corporal, was rather 
defiant, saying that the Russians would soon force the 
Austrians to retire from the Italian front (this was in 
June, 1916). The Austrian officer thereupon, smiling, 
remarked: ''You will meet Russians a little further 
down the road." The Italian was nonplussed. But, sure 
enough, another mile down we all met a large body of 
Russians. Only they were breaking stones on the road. 
As to the serious crimes committed by prisoners in 
camps and out of them, their number was relatively 
small. These were nearly all of one description: homi- 
cides. The Servians outnumbered the Russians five to 
one in this, although they counted, all told, but about 



VISITS TO WAR PEISONERS 297 

150,000 against the 900,000 Eussians. In this number of 
Servians are included the 85,000 of Servian civilians that 
had been evacuated by the Austrians during their second 
big campaign against Servia, the one which was under- 
taken in conjunction with Grermany and Bulgaria. But 
80,000 of these 85,000 have long ago been repatriated, 
in fact, early in 1916. Only 5,000, the most rabid and 
intractable, had been kept in detention camps. Among 
the Servian prisoners of war was an unusually large 
percentage of women and half-grown boys. The Aus- 
trian officer, a veteran captain of hussars (now crip- 
pled and incapacitated), with whom I discussed this 
point, said to me in explanation: ''The Servians had 
been systematically fanaticised for a decade before this 
war broke out. Their press, their government, their 
priests, had taught them that Austria-Hungary must be 
crushed in order to make Servia great. So that when 
our troops at last invaded Servia, they were met by a 
raving population. Even the old men of 70, the boys of 
12, the women of every age, had been given hand bombs, 
old handjars taken from the Turks in the Balkan War, 
and ancient rifles out of the national arsenal at Kragu- 
yevac, and as Jcomitadjis, in bands large or small, they 
assailed our men from every side, from the woods, the 
rocks, the ripening corn fields. And the worst, the most 
desperate amongst them were the half-crazed women. 
My own son, a lieutenant in the first campaign of the fall 
of 1914, fell a victim to such a female fiend. He had let 
her go after she had been caught red-handed shooting 
at our men from ambush, because he had noticed that she 
was soon to become a mother. But she, quick as a flash, 
drew a pistol from her bosom and killed him. With 
such fanatics there is no compromise possible. That is 



298 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

why there are so many Servian women here in this 
camp. ' ' 

The visit I paid to the detention camp at Wels, Upper 
Austria, showed me that, while the camp itself had noth- 
ing remarkable about it, Austria had certainly behaved 
toward her alien enemy population with consideration. 
I have been told that as to Hungary that is still more the 
case, and that barely 2,500 or 3,000 of them have been 
put under permanent or temporary confinement. In 
Austria the total number of residents belonging to the 
nations in a state of belligerency with her was at the 
breaking out of the war between 75,000 and 80,000. Of 
these not even ten per cent, have been put in detention 
camp, namely, slightly over 6,000. Of these, in the 
course of time and on promise of undertaking nothing of 
a hostile nature against the State, a further 2,200 have 
been set free; so that the remainder numbers below 
4,000. At the camp itself I found the usual pathetic 
scenes, due to the fact that nearly every person present 
meant a ruined and broken existence. For all these peo- 
ple had carried loyalty to the country of their birth to 
the point of finding themselves unable to forswear active 
hostility against their second home, the country actually 
sheltering them. Fanatics of one sort or another, I said 
to myself. And yet that was not true, as I looked a little 
more closely into things. There were many cases, I dis- 
covered, where the explanation was easily understood. 
However, this I found, at any rate, to be true that these 
several thousands of civilians of every age and sex could 
not reconcile it with their patriotism and conscience to 
refrain from open manifestations of hostility against 
Austria, if given the opportunity for it. But it would be 
going too far to discuss this question here in its various 
bearings. My official informant, to whom I applied for 



VISITS TO WAR PEISONERS 299 

a solution, gave me some interesting details. It appears 
that both in Austria and in Hungary the English and 
French governesses, lady companions, language teach- 
ers, with very few exceptions were allowed to remain in 
their places during the war, on their employers vouching 
for them. This seemed rather astonishing to me, as this 
class of persons has always been regarded with more or 
less suspicion, as peculiarly liable to espionage in war 
time, and this in every country. In fact, investigating 
things a little more closely, I found that a number of 
these tutors or governesses — ^both French and English — 
are in their old positions in the homes of some of the 
highest court personages, even including two cousins of 
Emperor Carl to this very day. I asked myself : Is this 
mere carelessness or is it excess of good nature? 

Certainly these are undeniable facts that all of the 
80,000 ' ' enemy civilians ' ' in Austria but 4,000, and all of 
the 30,000 in Hungary but about 2,000, are enjoying to 
the full their old ante helium rights; are in business, in 
the professions, are teaching, earning money, are moving 
freely about, without any restraint except (for some of 
them) the slight restraint of having to report periodi- 
cally to the police. And there is certainly no discover- 
able boycott of any kind practised against them. In all 
respects they are treated as they were before the war, 
enemies or not. I cannot help pointing to this fact, and 
leave it to the reader to draw his own conclusions there- 
from. 

But, without drawing any conclusion myself, I must 
confess that it seemed astonishing to me. And this for 
the reason that the danger threatening the State from 
espionage in all other ways appeared to me to be rather 
magnified than belittled in Austria. Thus, in leaving 
Vienna, I was forced to leave my books behind. I went 



300 AUSTRIA-HUNG AEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

to the chief of the censorship (and anti-spy measures) and 
found him a charming old gentleman replete with cour- 
tesy and bonhomie. But to my remonstrance he said: 
''Consider, my dear sir, that espionage against us has 
been carried on very largely by means of books leaving 
the country. Needle pricks may mean aU sorts of things. 
We lately found a few such pricks in the title page of a 
book. They meant in an agreed code : Turn to Page 65. 
On Page 65 we found another set of pricks. And so it 
went on to Page 115, Page 227, Page 336. It was a whole 
budget of treasonable information. Only a few pin 
pricks. So how can we tell? Now, your edition of 
Thackeray, for instance. Each small volume 850-900 
pages. Why, it would take this assistant of mine. Lieu- 
tenant D , a fortnight merely to go through your 

Dickens and Thackeray and Shakespeare and make sure 
there is no secret information in them. No, no ; the books 
must remain in Vienna. After the war — ah, well, nous 
verrons. Have a cigarette, my dear sirT' And so I 
came away. 

And then, at the same time, a whole regiment of those 
arch-conspirators, the foreign enemy tutors and govern- 
esses, moving about free as air. Isn't it amazing? 
Well, to my mind there is only one solution to the riddle : 
It is thoroughly Austrian. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

STRAY FACTS AND PEESONAL EXPERIENCES 

About some of the humbler heroes — "The Baby" of the Honved Regi- 
ment and his death — The Major and his hussars, and how they 
fought — ^With stocking feet in the snow — ^Because "it was more 
comfortable" — A modest monument on the crest of the hill — ^Why 
wife and child awaited him in vain — The parachute in the tree — ^A 
dog as a trained spy — A sycamore and the skeleton of the Italian 
major — "Pulpits" for observing the enemy — Artillery instructions 
and an incident at the Trentino sector — A church tower in Volhynia 
— Horrible holocaust — Censorship and press conditions — In Austria 
very strict, in Hungary very lenient — ^Whole proceedings of Hun- 
garian Parliament suppressed in Vienna — Trips beyond the border 
to learn the facts — ^Budapest during the war — Something about live 
"War Brides" — Vienna at the head of the list — Government pro- 
moted these conditions. 

In this chapter I mean to retail some odds and ends of 
personal experience during the war. They are not very 
important events chronicled here. But each of them has 
remained fixed in the writer's memory because of some 
distinctive, peculiar feature. And on that account I 
trust, despite the surfeit of *'war news," they will also 
interest the reader. 

Let me say at the outset that in a general way it is 
rather difficult to find at the Austro-Hungarian front 
your typical hero, the miles gloriosus. For both Aus- 
trians and Hungarians hate pose. If they have excelled 
in any way, they dislike being pointed out. But, if so, 
they are sheepish and shamefaced about- it. They are 

301 



302 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

simply unable to brag, to hump the chest and challenge 
admiration. It is not in them. They cannot do it. That 
also is why the few things bearing the hall-mark of hero- 
ism of which I heard during repeated, though brief, stays 
at the fighting fronts toward Russia and Italy, I heard 
from the mouths of others, not the doers themselves — 
from their superior officers usually. When at the Tren- 
tino front, for instance, one day I was shown three men 
in the uniform of the Tyrolean famed Kaiser jdger. The 
three were grandfather, father and son, aged, respec- 
tively, 78, 49 and 23. They were stalwart-looking fellows, 
all three. But it seemed to me as though the one of 78 
was the youngest. He was supple and springy, like one 
of his own native chamois. He and his son were volun- 
teers, and the old man — before the war a tourists' guide 
in the Dolomite Alps — ^had one night climbed an almost 
perpendicular peak, some 11,000 feet above sea level, 
with a handful of men, and had surprised and ousted the 
Italian garrison up there, in the middle of the night, 
bringing back some fifty prisoners. When I asked this 
ancient warrior about the details, he laughed uneasily 
and kept silent. His attitude is typical of these men who 
have a perfect horror of painting dramatic situations, 
who become speechless when under cross-examination. 
Sepp Mayr — that was this simple-minded man's simple 
name — simply considered he had done his duty and could 
see no reason for making much of it. This Alpine stock 
in Austria, more especially the Tyrolese, Styrians and 
Salzburgers, have retained much of their primitive fight- 
ing spirit. They are bellicose because they really enjoy 
a ''scrap." There is in them an admixture of Celtic 
blood, and in more than one way they reminded me of 
the Irish. The following little anecdote, told me by an 
eye-witness, will illustrate what I mean. It was in the 



STRAY FACTS AND EXPERIENCES 303 

spring of 1915, the scene being near Brzezany, Galicia, 
where a Styrian regiment had just stormed a Russian 
trench. But some few of the Russians showed fight, 
although their comrades held up their hands in token of 
surrender. And so Nazi Boldt, a son of Enak, who in 
Styria had been making a living felling trees, threw 
down his rifle and went for the nearest Muscovite, him- 
self a man of many inches, shouting to him: ''Oh, you 
want to fight? You haven't got enough? All right, here 
goes !" And forthwith began to wrestle with him, using 
only his bare fists. A ''broth of a boy." Just for the 
mere love of fighting. He tackled and threw him and be- 
laboured him with his ham-sized paws, until the Russian 
cried for mercy. Then, just as good-naturedly, he de- 
sisted. 

And because of this pugilistic, contentious instinct, the 
Magyars throughout this war, themselves being of a very 
similar disposition, and the Croats, who are also of the 
same way of thinking, of all their comrades-in-arms loved 
these Alpine Teutons best. I heard any number of 
stories testifying to that. Perhaps, though, the valour 
of the Magyars is of a higher grade. Here, for instance, 
is a little incident (for which I can vouch) which illus- 
trates this. In a certain Hungarian regiment of honveds 
(Jionved is the Hungarian equivalent of the German 
landwehr) a young fellow had joined early in the war. 
Aladar Bitto was his name, and his father occupied a 
high government position in Budapest. Aladar was the 
youngest in the family, barely 18, with a face as smooth 
and round as a billiard ball. It was rosy and girlish, and 
in the regiment they had given him the nickname "The 
Baby. ' ' But Aladar misliked the name intensely, and he 
was also ambitious. It was in VoDiynia, and the trench 
warfare afforded little opportunity to distinguish him- 



304 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

self till one day. It had been noticed that over on the 
Russian side something unusual was brewing. The near- 
est Russian trenches were 1,200 yards off. The space 
between was rolling prairie, and on tussocks coarse grass 
often grew four feet high. There were some hollows here 
and there, some morass, and some brush and bramble. It 
had been found impossible, though, on the Hungarian 
side, to determine the motive for this restlessness among 
the Russians. Young Bitto volunteered to find out. His 
captain at first would not let him go on such dangerous 
reconnoitring, mostly because of his extreme youth and 
inexperience. But the young man had thought it all out. 
He described his plan minutely. Though risky, it seemed 
feasible. And finally, after consulting the colonel com- 
manding the regiment, he granted Bitto the permission 
so eagerly sought, only stipulating that he was to take 
along another man, one older and more experienced. The 
moon would not rise till about two, and six hours would 
thus be his to make his discoveries in. When the two 
started, Bitto took at once charge of the expedition. At 
first the most difficult thing was to find the way. There 
were few landmarks to guide them. Mostly they had to 
crawl on their bellies, and the telephone they had taken 
along and which connected them directly with the tent 
of the colonel, got its thin cord often enough entangled 
in the weeds. Besides, it was a cumbrous thing to drag 
along. Several times they almost ran into a Russian pa- 
trol, evidently sent out on the same sort of spy work, but 
they managed to evade them. And thus they approached 
the enemy's first trenches closer and closer. They sepa- 
rated and agreed to meet, if alive, a short distance be- 
hind, to compare notes. Young Bitto alone crawled 
ahead with greater precaution. He soon saw that the ad- 
vanced trench was being filled by detachments from the 



STRAY FACTS AND EXPERIENCES 305 

rear, coming in single file into the connecting trenches. 
He heard the deadened clatter of arms ; also instructions 
and commands given in subdued voices. There could be 
no doubt; the Russians planned a storming attack. He 
was but a few paces off from one of the Russian double 
sentinels. Suddenly his telephone struck against a peb- 
ble on the ground. There was a slight click, and in- 
stantly the nearest sentinel raised his rifle and pointed 
it in his direction. He saw the man searching with his 
eyes in the half -gloom of the night. The Russian raised 
his gun, and Bitto instantly let go at him with his re- 
volver. He saw the man drop. He heard the second 
sentinel turn and face in his direction. He dimly per- 
ceived that the Russians in the trenches had halted. He 
seized his field telephone, lying on the ground, and gave 
the agreed signal, ''Tee-tee," over the wire. He could 
hear the answering signal of the colonel's. He hastily 
but distinctly and in cold blood sent the message : ' ' Rus- 
sians preparing attack. Almost ready " Then he 

fell pierced by a dozen bullets that had been fired at him 
by the Russians, who had hurried up and discovered him. 
His lifeless arm still grasped the telephone. He had 
frustrated the Russian surprise party. 

-y. Jf. 4t. «y. Jt; 

In this whole war of many millions I have not heard 
of an action more gallant, more imbued with the un- 
daunted spirit of old, than that in which Major Vaszonyi 
and his regiment of Hungarian hussars were annihilated. 
It was late in the winter of March, 1915, in the region be- 
tween Przemysl and the Carpathian passes. The colonel 
who had commanded the regiment had been killed. Dur- 
ing previous encounters the regiment had lost nearly 40 
per cent, of its active strength. But here it was again, 
defending a hill of strategical importance, 600 feet in 



306 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

height, against a Russian advance. The Hungarians 
were finally pushed up higher and higher, until they made 
their last stand, against fourfold odds, on the wooded 
crest. To fight better, to ''be more comfortable," as Ma- 
jor Vaszonyi put it, he and his men had taken off their 
heavy riding boots and stood in the deep snow in their 
stocking feet. This regiment, in their scarlet attilas, 
was known like the other Hungarian hussars, under the 
dreaded name of the ' ' Red Devils ' ' by the Russians. And 
indeed like devils they fought. They had but their car- 
bines and their curved sabres, against the Russian rifles 
of greater range, but as they came to close quarters they 
threw away the carbines and used only their sabres, their 
fists, their teeth. But very few of the whole regiment 
escaped, or were taken prisoners by the overwhelming 
number of Russians. When, on the second day after, 
Austrian and Hungarian reinforcements arrived, the last 
battlefield of this dauntless band was discovered up on 
the mountain top, on a meadow surrounded by a dense 
grove, and there they lay, the dead of both sides, in rows 
and in heape. The group around the fallen hero, Major 
Vaszonyi, was most significant. The snow showed pud- 
dles of frozen blood, and he himself, with an army re- 
volver, of which every chamber was emptied, near him, 
had in each fist a throttled Russian. 

Three months later the Austro-Hungarians held once 
more the whole surrounding district. That meadow has 
since been turned into a graveyard, in which plain iron 
crosses puncture the sod. The finest and tallest of these 
crosses, though, in a few lines of raised lettering, tells of 
the fierce death-grapple made here by the hussar regi- 
ment and its commander. 

Another action, likewise a glorious defeat, calling here 
for a brief mention, was that which the small cavalry 



STRAY FACTS AND EXPEEIENCES 307 

body forming part of the Polish Legion fighting tinder 
the Austrian flag had in that triangular section of East- 
ern Galicia adjoining Bessarabia. In itself it was, from 
a tactical viewpoint, an almost inexcusable blunder of the 
Legion *s commander. General Pilsudski, for it entrusted 
a task impossible of fulfilment to this small detachment 
of uhlans, scarcely 400 of them, thus uselessly consigning 
them to certain destruction. But as a valiant feat of the 
soldier 's unquestioning obedience it deserves high praise. 
Some Eussian trenches had proved impregnable, and as 
a last resort Pilsudski ordered his uhlans to attack and 
take them. The Russians at first were so dazed by the 
attack, evidently regarding it as a crazy feat of useless 
daring, that for a short time it looked as though, after 
all, the experiment should succeed. The men in the 
trenches were overridden, held up their hands, and then 
saw the horses and their riders rushing on to the next 
trenches. These, too, made no great resistance, although 
the thin line of attackers grew thinner by shot and bullet. 
Only in the third row of trenches, some 1,500 yards from 
the starting point, did the gallant fellows meet their 
doom. Here they also had penetrated victoriously, and 
to the shouted demand to surrender the officers in these 
trenches were on the point of yielding, when like light- 
ning the conviction came to them that this handful of 
riders was aU there was to it — that there were no others 
following or backing them up. Then one of the Russian 
officers in stentorian voice called upon his men to shoot. 
And they did, and that meant the end of that attack. 
Nearly all of Pilsudski 's mounted troops at that time 
perished in this mad adventure. It was a blunder — ^no 
doubt of it. But it showed the mettlesome temper of his 
race that the entire Polish press — ^not alone that of Ga- 
licia, but of Russia-Poland as well — ^had not a word of 



308 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

censure for him. ''Theirs not to question why — ^theirs 

but to do or die." 

^ m * * ^ 

How many times during this awful war must have 
happened to others what happened to a poor Vienna wife 
and her little boy. The husband had been fighting 
bravely on the Italian front for a number of months. 
Then, on making apphcation for a fortnight's home 
leave, it was granted him, the date of his departure be- 
ing fixed. The day before he had been ordered to mount 
guard in front of the trenches, being stationed pretty well 
in advance at a point of observation. At last he is re- 
lieved. Thank Heaven! His last bit of duty fulfilled. 
To-morrow he will start to see once more his dear ones, 
to breathe once more the air of home. But stop ! He has 
no gift to bring his little boy — ^his little Steve. He is 
poor. He has saved very little from his scant pay. And 
during the last hour of his mounting guard the enemy 
has, to enable him in the gathering dusk to watch better 
the movements on this side, sent up bundles of small 
rockets, as has often been done before. And to steady 
these rockets and make illumination more lasting, little 
parachutes were attached to these rockets and one of 
these parachutes he has marked exactly in falling. It 
has dropped into a tree not far off. He notices it clinging 
to a twig, not far up. A parachute — ^well, not a very 
costly toy — ^not as pretty a one as he should have liked to 
bring home to his little Steve. But, after all, a toy. So 
our friend, after winning back to his trench, eats a bite, 
smooths up, and then requests permission to go and get 
this parachute. It is not far off. He gets to the tree. 
Yes, the parachute is still there, fluttering in the cool 
evening breeze. He climbs up, he puts out his hand to 
reach it. Sh-sh-sh! A new rocket is sent up by the 



STRAY FACTS AND EXPERIENCES 309 

enemy over yonder, and the wind drives it close to his 
tree. "Tack!" Just one shot from the trench across. 
But it has found its mark. The man falls off the tree — 
drops like a sack. 

And next day the wife — ^the widow — is waiting for him 
at the railroad station, her little Steve by the hand. 
Waiting patiently first, then impatiently. Alas ! he will 
never come. He has already been laid in a grave behind 
the trench. 

^ jf. j^ jf. jf. 

At this same Italian front, but in a different section of 
it, on the Isonzo, there was for a long time a peculiar 
landmark. The Austrian artillery some distance in the 
rear found it very serviceable. The commander of a 
battery would say to his men : "Aim : 3,800 yards : regu- 
lar tempo, two degrees to the left of Major Fabiani!" 
And a moment or so later there would be a rolling thun- 
der, a terrific concussion of air, and some heavy objects 
would fly past, just two degrees to the left of Major Fa- 
biani. You will want to know who Major Fabiani was. 
Major Fabiani had been artillery observer up in a "pul- 
pit" constructed with considerable skill in the space be- 
tween two of the big branches of a sycamore tree, said 
sycamore tree standing on a hillock in such a position as 
to command a rather extensive view of the Austrian posi- 
tions about 1,600 or 1,700 yards forward. Probably Ma- 
jor Fabiani and other Italian officers from time to time 
relieving him had made good use of his "pulpit." It 
was well hidden among the thick foliage and behind the 
trunk itself. But the Austrians must have remarked or 
suspected that there was something queer about that 
sycamore tree. For one fine day, when shooting was good 
and the air was clear, a perfect hailstorm of shrapnel 



310 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

came down and destroyed the ''pulpit" and the pulpi- 
teer. 

Since which Major Fabiani, dead and dried to a skele- 
ton, is bobbing up and down in the wind, head downward, 
and the body held in place by the coat being caught in a 
splintered branch. And as I remarked at the start, this 
dead and gone Major Fabiani now fills the useful pur- 
pose of affording a landmark to the Austrian artillery. 
For, as experience has taught them, aiming precisely two 
degrees to the left of the swinging target, at the proper 
elevation the Austrian ''heavies" just plunge a few of 
their projectiles into the Italian concentration point 
three miles in the rear of that sycamore, and if aiming 
five degrees to the right, they are apt to create serious 
discomfort to the Italians at the railroad junction 
whence ammunition is hauled. Everything is measured 
from Major Fabiani by the Austrian artillery in that vi- 
cinity. So Major Fabiani, dead, is really of more conse- 
quence to them than Major Fabiani, alive. 

At the Volhynian front the Austrian forces had for a 
long time another landmark, employed for a similar pur- 
pose and almost of as gruesome a character. It was not 
far from the small Russian fortress of Lutzk, and the 
landmark was the church steeple in the little village of 
Bralowce. To be still more exact, it was the scarred 
ruins of a church steeple. For when in the fall of 1915 
the Russians had been compelled to retire hastily, they 
had followed their habit of setting fire to the whole vil- 
lage, and the flames had spread so rapidly that a big 
group of villagers, men, women and children, with the 
priest to guide them — ^had not been able to escape in time. 
In a thick tangle they had been crowded together on the 
platform of the square tower, and there they had been 
seized by the fiery tongues, by blinding smoke and deadly 



STEAY FACTS AND EXPEEIENCES 311 

heat, and had all perished. Looked at from below it 
was one frightful clump of charred flesh and bones. Now 
ruined church and burnt village lay midway between 
Austrians and Russians, and soon the Austrians had 
picked the steeple as a landmark to guide their artillery 
fire. In the flat landscape of the Dniester lowlands the 
tower stood out domineeringly, and using it in this way 
objects of military interest could be reached for miles 
ahead with exactitude. Finally, however, the Russians, 
having been informed of this fact by Austrian prisoners 
they had taken, demolished the church and steeple by a 
few well-directed shots from their big guns. That was 
the end of that old church. 

*Jt. Jl. Jtm Jim 

W TP ^ 'tP 

Much has been said and written about the important 
part played by man 's best friend in this great war. Dogs 
have been trained for every imaginable purpose — chiefly 
to assist in Red Cross work, to find wounded on the field, 
in brush and swamp, in snow and mud. I remember 
watching one of the young daughters of the Archduke 
Leopold Salvator, Annunziata her name was and she was 
still in her tender teens, educating two of her favourite 
pets to this work. She did it in her father's extensive 
grounds, up on the Galytzin Hill near Vienna, and I had 
to admire her patience as a teacher and trainer. Alto- 
gether she alone donated some ten of such self-taught 
war dogs to the Red Cross. She was indefatigable — at 
it from mom till night. Many other * * stunts ' ' dogs were 
made fit for, such as messenger work between trenches 
and provisioning stations; to drag tiny munition carts 
where the territory forbade humans performing that 
task, or when barrage fire made other approach impos- 
sible. Thousands of dogs have been utilised for these 
and other purposes by all the belligerents, and the dog 



312 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

has never shirked, and many of him, very many, attested 
their supreme fidelity by a violent death. But that the 
dog has also been used as a spy, I confess, was new to me. 
And yet my story will prove it, and I presume it is not a 
unique case, though I at least never heard of another like 
it. 

This was in Galicia, not far from the Rumanian border. 
Russians and Austro-Hungarians faced each other there 
at an average distance of one and a half to two miles. 
It was west of Brody. The whole district, settled almost 
altogether by Ruthenian peasants, was Russophil in its 
way of thinking. For years before the breaking out of 
the war Russia had carried on a very systematic and 
effective propaganda, carried it on by means of clerical 
as well as lay apostles, by word of mouth or by booklets 
in which much weight was laid on the near kinship of 
Ruthenians with Russians and on their close religious 
relations, in which promises were made of a new distri- 
bution of tillable soil among the impoverished Ruthenian 
peasantry, a point above all others which scored a hit 
with these land-hungry people. It had been due to this 
propaganda that the Austrian government, in 1913, there- 
fore but one year before the war, had finally interfered. 
There had been a monster trial in which some 300 or 
more of Russophil agitators had been defendants and a 
number of convictions made. Well, it had been in this 
district then, that a division of Austrian troops were 
trying to hold their own for months against Brusiloff's 
men, and in trying to do this found themselves hampered 
at every step by treason from within. Every day a score 
or so of these Ruthenian farmers were shot for betraying 
military secrets to the Russians beyond. The Russians, 
however, paid well and no stop could be put to the trou- 
ble. Now and then, when the Russians in advancing 



STEAY FACTS AND EXPERIENCES 313 

had stormed and taken some new Austrian positions, and 
a contingent of Russian troops would occupy a Ruthenian 
village, something like this would be seen : The colonel 
or general in command of this body of Russians in tak- 
ing formal possession would ride to the centre of the 
market square, pull out a list from his breast pocket, and 
in a sonorous voice would read off a string of names, 
bidding these men at the same time step forward. These 
smilingly would do so, and the Russian commander next 
would pull out a fat purse and recompense them. For 
these were members of his corps of spies, men who had 
been in some cases for years in the employ of the Petro- 
grad government. 

When, therefore, my informant. Captain Walz, on July 
27th, 1916, had to move into new quarters at the village 
of Magrannya Globu, he and the subalterns of his com- 
pany were extremely cautious in dealing with the native 
population. However, the only house in the small place 
fit to live in was that of the Ruthenian village chief, a 
man named Nikophor Huszkiewicz. He had a wife and 
four sons, was the only man of means there, and showed 
himself quite eager and pressing in his hospitality. 

*'But here was the rub," said Capt. Walz. ''From the 
moment this body of Austrian officers was quartered in 
the man's house, things on our section of the front 
changed for the worse. Of course we were in daily com- 
munication, both by field telephone and meldereiter, with 
division headquarters. But up to this time there had 
been no leak. Now there evidently was. It was certain 
that the Russians facing us were being kept informed, 
regularly and quickly as well as with exactitude, of 
changes going on on our side. Any regrouping of our 
reserves, our batteries and machine gun companies, was 
at once known to the Russians. Big transports in the 



814 AUSTEIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

way of nmnitions or provisions were intercepted repeat- 
edly, even when miles in our rear. There was only one 
explanation : successful espionage work done for the Rus- 
sians. I watched and watched. In vain. Yet this trea- 
son must be done by somebody constantly and promptly 
informed of all that was going on among us. It hap- 
pened once that one of our batteries received orders be- 
tween eleven and twelve at night to move next morning 
at eight to a certain point miles distant, and to begin, in 
the shelter of a grove of birches, a specified bombard- 
ment against a point on the Russian front. And then, 
the battery having arrived and just begun to get the de- 
sired range, a tremendous and well-directed fire would 
be opened on them, forcing them to decamp with consid- 
erable loss. Briefly, there was treason in this; it could 
not be explained on any other theory. A number of ar- 
rests among the Ruthenian population were made, but 
in no case could anything be proven against them. The 
mystery seemed insoluble. Until the best detective, ac- 
cident, came to our aid. 

^'Huszkiewicz, our host, cherished with singular affec- 
tion a dog he had, a cur of no particular breed, a snappy, 
semi-savage mongrel of a shepherd dog. However, that 
fact alone was not very astonishing. The dog might 
have good points not visible at first sight. Against us 
Austrian officers the beast showed decided animosity. He 
did not even allow us to approach him. And when with 
his master his fur would bristle if any one of us would 
merely come near him. Now one day some Russian sol- 
diers were brought in as prisoners. And instead of 
growling and snapping at these, he wagged his tail in 
friendship as the Russians went past him. One of the 
latter even bent down and stroked the dog in a petting 
way, and the beast suffered him to do so, sniffing at his 



STRAY FACTS AND EXPERIENCES 315 

uniform the while. This discovery made me reflect. And 
Huszkiewicz, when I mentioned the circumstance to him, 
talked evidently at random. Again, I now took notice for 
the first time of the fact that the dog wore a leather 
collar of peculiar make and size, closed by a strong look. 
Thinking the matter over, I became morally certain that 
somehow the dog was in this game of treason and that 
his master, Huszkiewicz, was the brains of it. Without 
exciting his suspicion I put a close watch on him. But 
only two days after did I succeed in laying bare the 
scheme. In fact, I caught him at it. Just as I had sus- 
pected, he had noted down, in Russian, the essential bits 
of news on our side, on very thin tissue paper, illustrat- 
ing his report by rough but explicit drawings. And this 
we caught him inserting in the hollow interior of the col- 
lar. With such regular communications his dog had been 
in the habit of being sent across to the Russian trenches, 
and in each case the dog had been petted and treated to 
tidbits by the Russians before being sent back to our 
line. That had been the simple but amazingly successful 
game of Huszkiewicz. Thus, too, the dog's preference for 
the Russian uniform was explained. His master did not 
long survive this exposure. The next day he was stood 
up against the wall and a well-directed bullet finished 
him." This, in substance, was the tale told me by Capt. 

Walz. 

* * * * * 

Rather curious in its manipulation and effect has been 
the war censorship in Austria-Hungary. While in Aus- 
tria it was, on the whole, far stricter than in Germany, 
the reverse has been true of Hungary. Probably this has 
been owing to two chief reasons, namely, first, the fact 
that Magyar is a tongue understood only in a very re- 
stricted territory and that newspapers and periodicals 



316 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

printed in that language do not, as a rule, exercise much 
influence abroad on that very account ; and, second, that 
in Hungary a very sweeping liberty of the press has pre- 
vailed for the past seventy years, not even modified to 
any noticeable degree during these war times. In Aus- 
tria, on the other hand, some few newspapers of world- 
wide influence are issued, and true freedom of the press 
has never existed, and, of course, what there has been is 
now greatly curtailed. 

But out of this strong contrast there grew some pe- 
culiar facts. Thus, the relatively few Austrians who pos- 
sess any knowledge of Magyar at all, soon after the war 
broke out became subscribers to some bold and outspoken 
Budapest papers, preferably one belonging to the opposi- 
tion, such as the Az Est. The owners of the Az Est had 
even the audacity to plaster Vienna all over with wall 
posters in flaming hue, proclaiming to the world — and in- 
cidentally to the impotent Austrian censorship — that 
theirs was "the only newspaper telling the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth." It was amusing 
to watch in all the Vienna coffee houses a daily scene : 
A row of tables shoved together, and at them seated with 
bated breath and open mouth a number of sensation- 
hungry Viennese ; in the centre of the group one man, the 
only one knowing Magyar, translating the latest impor- 
tant news retailed solely by the As Est. 

As a simple matter of fact, all through the war the pa- 
pers in Hungary were far better informed and printed, 
without let or hindrance, the most ticklish news, while 
those in Vienna and the rest of Austria had to keep si- 
lence. All sorts of such news: defeats of Austro-Hun- 
garian armies; surrender of whole regiments of Czechs 
to the Russians and Serbs; mutinous conduct of troops; 
gross blunders of the government in handling the food 



STEAY FACTS AND EXPERIENCES 317 

scarcity; peppery and almost treasonable threats by op- 
position members in the Hungarian parliament ; incapac- 
ity shown in military commands by the archdukes, etc., 
etc. — whole budgets of such news crept regularly, through 
the leak afforded by the Hungarian press license, into 
the other half of the monarchy. There it was whispered 
wherever neighbours met in the streets. Meanwhile the 
Austrian newspapers, under their own particular and 
inconceivably severe censorship, were condemned to im- 
potence, dared not say a word beyond what the official 
blue pencil had not marked off. And in the very few 
cases when they did dare, retribution came swift and ter- 
rible ; for such indiscreet organs were simply confiscated 
and their appearance prohibited for weeks or months, 
or wholly suppressed. Very curious it was. In Vienna 
worse than Muscovite squelching of public opinion; in 
Budapest, but three hours' ride by rail, unlimited expres- 
sion of public opinion. It happened several times that 
whole reports of specific sessions of the Hungarian par- 
liament were tabooed in Austria ; these were, of course, 
those in which topics of delicate bearing on the relations 
of the two countries or other things had been discussed 
which the Austrian censor deemed it on the whole not 
good for the health of his readers to know. One of the 
comical features of all this was that the Viennese when- 
ever their curiosity and their indignation at this enforced 
policy of silence had attained a certain pitch, would make 
up, on one pretence or other, whole parties and under- 
take a pilgrimage to the Hungarian capital to saturate 
themselves with forbidden news of every kind, and then 
return home satisfied and in a peaceable frame once 
more. 

In the course of the war I paid several short visits 
to Budapest. It was an entirely different atmosphere 



318 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

into wMcli one plunged. Not only because there was 
neither lack of reliable news from every source nor of 
palatable meals, but also for the reason that the Hun- 
garians at no time during the fearful struggle, not even 
during the days of awful suspense — when, early in 1915, 
they expected the Russians under Grandduke Nicholas 
Nicholayevitch to break through and flood their country 
with plundering Cossacks — lost courage and self-confi- 
dence. A more striking contrast those days it was hard 
to conceive than the timid and nervous people of Vienna 
and the dare-devil Magyars of Budapest. In the elegant 
Andrassy St. of that gay capital, a sort of Fifth Ave., 
plus the buoyant open-air life of the cafes with their 
gipsy bands forever tuning up the nerves, no stranger 
would have for a moment supposed he was in a city but 
a short distance from where a lif e-and-death struggle was 
going on — in those Carpathian passes where hecatombs 
of war's victims lie still bleaching in the sun. All the 
reckless life of a pleasure-loving city was rushing on 
through it all. There was as much gambling and as much 
music and as much love-making as ever — at least to all 
appearances. And on Margit's Isle, that Hungarian edi- 
tion of Monte Carlo, just a jump from Budapest, the pick- 
nickers were as careless as of yore. A strange, a wonder- 
ful city is Budapest — truly a town where East meets 

West. 

***** 

"War-brides'* — ^not the kind dealt in on Wall St., but 
the genuine article, the brides wedded when war broke 
out — have been a great factor in Austria, also in Hun- 
gary. Vienna easily led the list. For the peculiar fea- 
ture about this matter was (for both countries, but more 
especially for Vienna) that these weddings at the very 
outset of the long war were not of the ordinary, hum- 



STEAY FACTS AND EXPERIENCES 319 

drum, bourgeois kind, in nine cases out of ten. No, these 
brides bad nearly all been wives and mothers, all but in 
the strict meaning of the law. It was said that some 
115,000 of such long-delayed weddings were celebrated 
in Vienna alone during the first three months — August 
to October, 1914. In Prague the number was reckoned 
at about 26,000, in Budapest, 37,000; and so forth. Vi- 
enna, however, furnished both absolutely and proportion- 
ally by far the largest number of such belated brides. 
Nearly all of them made soldiers their lawful lords on 
the eve of these going to the front. The government paid 
all these new wives a daily stipend (small indeed, but 
in many cases the only means of subsistence), that is, 
where the need really existed for financial support. 
Later on the amount was raised again and again and was 
graded according to the number of children under age 
that these women had to look after. It did not exceed, 
though, in any case K. 90 (about $18) per month. A 
singular feature in Vienna was that only the stress of 
war brought out, in thousands of instances, the fact that 
these women had been unmarried so long, unsuspected 
by their friends and relatives. Altogether, it was calcu- 
lated by an Austrian newspaper, there had been within 
the Dual Monarchy at the time war exploded, some 1,- 
200,000 of such non-legalised unions between men and 
women. This is probably a unique fact. It is the more 
incomprehensible because by its unwise marriage legis- 
lation the Austrian government has distinctly promoted 
just such unhealthy conditions. 



CHAPTER XIX 

CONCLUDING BEMAEKS 

The fate of Austria-Hungary — Can she become a sort of United 
States, with full autonomy for her races and provinces'? — The 
great difficulties intervening — German supremacy an accomplished 
fact which plays a decisive part — Will there be a revolution? — 
Liberalism is no entity in either Austria or Hungary — Problems 
of racial autonomy — The makeup of the parliament in Austria 
— The latest developments in Hungarj^ — The "Mittel Europa" 
idea — Still a puzzle. 

In venturing on some concluding remarks, I keep in 
mind the extreme difficulty of predicating anything defi- 
nite as to the near future of Austria-Hungary. The 
reader, if he has had patience enough to follow me thus 
far, must have seen that the political situation of the 
Dual Monarchy, leaving out of consideration the equally 
involved economic one, is wrapped up in so many con- 
flicting problems that an arbitrary verdict is out of the 
question. Some ideas and questions that naturally occur 
to a student of Austro-Hungarian conditions at this pres- 
ent stage, having been answered by me, however, in a 
recent magazine article in a manner which at this writ- 
ing at least I could not improve upon, I take the liberty 
of making partial use of it in this book.* 

To undertake the task of a prophet has always been 
bad business, but never more so than during this war 

* "The Fate of Austria-Hungary" by Wolf von Sehierbrand, The 
World's Work for June, 1917. 

320 



CONCLUDING EEMARKS 321 

whicli has upset all predictions. Not to come to grief, 
therefore, it must be understood that the following is 
not to be looked upon in the light of a forecast. It pre- 
tends to be no more than a grouping of the ascertained 
facts, so far as they crudely present themselves in the 
fierce turmoil of a world-wide struggle, with the conclu- 
sions that may be derived therefrom. 

Several questions come uppermost in the mind when 
looking at the Austria-Hungary of to-day. 

Will Austria-Hungary leave Germany before the end 
of the fight? 

To this the answer seems plain : It would be certain 
political and economic suicide for her to do so. Hence 
she cannot. And without elaborating this reply for the 
moment, let us consider the next obvious question, 
namely : 

Will Austria be subservient to Germany after the war ? 
And to what extent is she so now? 

Briefly, Austria-Hungary cannot help herself in the 
matter. Her dependence is not voluntary. So far as sen- 
timent is concerned, indeed, there is very little love lost 
between the two countries. For Prussia and the Prus- 
sians a distinct dislike is even felt. The wounds of 1866 
are still smarting. Her fall from power, the loss of her 
supremacy in the Germany of that time, are keenly real- 
ised. Prussia is regarded as an upstart with the unami- 
able qualities of an upstart. The departed glory of the 
Austria of old is deeply regretted. For the remainder of 
Germany, for her allies of 1866, for Bavaria and Saxony 
and Baden and Wurttemberg, there is lukewarm sym- 
pathy. These are the sentiments of the patriotic Aus- 
trians of the old school, mainly those of the Teuton Aus- 
trians. For the young empire of 1871 there prevails a 
mingled feeling, made up of about equal parts of admira- 



322 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

tion and fear. The Slavs of Austria bear their power- 
ful western neighbour undisguised hatred. Of Hungary, 
I speak elsewhere. 

But needs must. Austria is firmly convinced that with- 
out Germany's strong arm to support her she is doomed 
as a political entity. We all grasp the hand that is held 
out to us to save us from drowning, no matter v/hose it 
be. As Bismarck once styled the close alliance with the 
Danube monarchy: Es ist eine Vernunftheirat (a mar- 
riage of reason, of convenience). 

Consider the facts. Look at Austria-Hungary's pres- 
ent plight. Austria-Hungary is economically undevel- 
oped, or at least not sufficiently developed. Her tur- 
bulent history, plus another more recent element, 
i.e., the race strife within her borders, accounts for 
that. Of that one becomes aware as soon as one crosses 
her frontiers. How far behind she is in intellec- 
tual development is best seen, for instance, by studying 
her latest statistics. From them it is seen that there 
are whole large provinces where illiteracy predominates. 
In Dalmatia, for example, the percentage of inhabitants 
unable to read and write is 65 ; in Galicia it is 62 ; in cer- 
tain districts it rises to 73. These are the figures of 1913. 
The number of holidays observed is excessive — they total 
eighty-seven during the year. She needs capital. Hun- 
gary especially, though a country abounding in natural 
resources, urgently requires capital. Formerly Paris 
was the money market to which Hungary applied by 
preference. But owing in part to the heavy drain on her 
liquid resources made by Russia, as well as to the fact 
that Hungary formed part of the Dreibund, that market 
was closed to her. That became very evident during 
the five years preceding the war when Hungary vainly 
attempted to place various loans for internal improve- 



CONCLUDING EEMAEKS 323 

ments in Paris. There was a financial boycott declared 
against Hungary by France. Thus Hungary, too, was 
forced to turn to Germany as a financial backer. 

The whole banking system of Austria, her financial 
status, rests and leans on Germany. The connection is 
very intimate and strong. In its trade, in its industrial 
life, in its technical development, Austria is strongly de- 
pendent on Germany. According to the latest available 
data, Austria possesses only one-fifth the capital of Ger- 
many. She requires capital in order to utilise more effi- 
ciently her natural resources, her mines, her enormous 
water power (now largely fallow), the mountain streams 
of Styria, Carniola, Carinthia; to build electric plants, 
factories, mills. As it is, though, vast sums of German 
money are invested in the cotton mills, the cloth mills, 
paper mills, the arms and munition plants, the iron and 
steel works of Bohemia and Styria. Many of the tech- 
nical directors there are Germans. Many of the German 
secret processes of manufacture, including those in chem- 
istry and the dye industry, enable Austria to hold her 
own. 

This is just a hasty and incomplete synopsis of actual 
economic conditions. 

Of course it is true that this dependence on Germany 
is not flattering to Austrian self-respect. Many there 
before and during this war turned in their thoughts to 
America. And let me say right here that despite all the 
recent events the feeling of the Austrian and Hungarian 
people (as distinguished from their governments) has 
remained steadfastly friendly to America. One strong 
reason for Austria-Hungary's reluctance to break off 
diplomatic relations with this country was the hope that 
after the war America might aid them in building up 
their neglected country economically. To illustrate this 



324 AUSTEIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

I have merely to recall what Dr. Ernst von Koerber, the 
late premier, said to me as recently as last September. 

Dr. von Koerber, who was since once more prevailed 
upon to accept the Austrian premiership and who is with- 
out question one of the clearest minds of his country, said 
to me on that occasion that he strongly hoped for Ameri- 
can financial support and economic co-operation in the 
restoration and upbuilding of the Dual Monarchy. He 
spoke with good judgment of the hitherto insufficient ex- 
ploitation of Austria-Hungary's natural resources, which 
he called "scarcely tapped" as yet. He discoursed both 
with animation and admiration on the wonderful spirit 
of enterprise innate in Americans, and referred feelingly 
to the universal sympathy entertained by all classes of 
the people of Austria-Hungary for the United States. 

But while that hope has now probably vanished for 
good, there remain so many solid, so many selfish grounds 
for Austria to look to Germany for her economic re- 
demption and advancement after the war, that it were 
idle to blind oneself to the fact. One more such reason I 
may cite here, and a potent one. I refer to the plan of 
linking the North Sea to the Black Sea. This is a gigan- 
tic project, one calculated to bring the peoples and coun- 
tries bordering on the route into closest economic contact 
to their mutual advantage, and moreover a project which 
is already beyond the initial stages. Ever since the early 
spring of 1915 the press of Germany and of Austria- 
Hungary has been engaged in propaganda work in behalf 
of this idea, and by this time the respective governments 
have adopted it. 

To put it in a nutshell, the scheme consists in connect- 
ing the four chief rivers of Germany, the Elbe, the 
Weser, the Rhine, and the Oder, by means of shipping 
canals, with the Danube, at Ulm, South Germany, and 



CONCLUDING EEMARKS 325 

thence to improve the Danube itself all along through 
Austria-Hungary, Serbia, Eumania, as far as the Black 
Sea and Constantinople. At present the total length of 
the inland waterways of Germany is 8,570 miles, and the 
record of 1913 shows that through these waterways 
56,657,000 tons of goods were carried, 19,717,000 tons 
of this being for export, 23,233,000 tons for imports. By 
perfecting this existing system the river traffic, so much 
less expensive than that by rail, can be expanded enor- 
mously. In 1913, for instance, 5,762,000 tons of goods 
were carried in 21,000 vessels by internal waterways to 
Hamburg. After the completion of the North-Sea-Black- 
Sea project, ships of 1,000 tons each can be sent from the 
Bosphorus to Hamburg and vice versa, trebling the bulk 
of this internal traffic or more. And in its essential ele- 
ments the whole plan has already been adopted and parts 
of it, such as the widening of the Rhine-Danube Canal, 
are in process of construction. Without any doubt not 
only Germany but also Austria-Hungary and the Balkan 
States will be greatly benefited. And for carrying out 
the entire plan, German capital, imposts, and taxes will 
be invested to the tune of hundreds of millions, amount- 
ing to more than two thirds of the whole. 

Thus, at every step, in vital points, the material inter- 
ests of Austria-Hungary and of Germany tally. No 
inconsiderable portion of the big war loan of Austria- 
Hungary has been subscribed by Germans. Everywhere 
and always the hand of the powerful neighbour and ally 
is felt. 

Another point. When war broke out, Austria-Hungary 
was not prepared for it. In fact, she was less prepared 
in a military sense than any of the other belligerents. 
This fact has received little attention abroad, but it is 
incontrovertible. I passed through those days in Vienna, 



326 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

and I know whereof I speak. It was due to the Austrian 
and Hungarian parliaments themselves that the mon- 
archy's army presented, in the earlier part of the Great 
War, a pitiable spectacle, nothing less. The valour of 
her men cannot be denied. But I am referring to her 
military organisation. 

For a number of years the joint government, through 
the Minister of War (who acts for Austria and Hungary 
both) and the naval secretary, had urged in both parlia- 
ments a better state of preparedness. It was all in vain. 
Hungary demanded that her army contingents be put en- 
tirely under her own control and that her "army lan- 
guage" be Magyar instead of German. This the old em- 
peror refused to accede to, believing that it would be 
destructive of army efficiency. Without it the Hungarian 
parliament would not consent to army reform. In Aus- 
tria, again, it was similar. There the majority in parlia- 
ment made a vote in favour of army reconstruction de-' 
pendent on racial and nationalistic concessions which the 
government felt itself unable to promise. 

In that way it happened that when war really did come, 
Austria-Hungary had only one thing: a good army of 
the first line, composed of the young men in active serv- 
ice, together with the first portion of the reserves — ^men 
between 20 and 28, the best of her fighting men — in all 
numbering about 600,000. With these she faced Serbia 
first, and then Russia's millions. Her system of military 
organisation was at fault. With these 600,000 she did 
splendidly at first; her men rushed at the Russian le- 
gions so gallantly, faced enormous odds so valiantly, as 
to score a number of victories, at Rawaruska, etc. But 
this lasted only until Russia had massed her strength, 
or rather a small part of it. 

Then inevitably had to come retreat, abandonment of 



CONCLUDINa REMAEKS 327 

the larger part of Galicia, while Germany had to send 
strong reinforcements hurriedly to her ally and thus give 
up her initial war plans in France, Meanwhile, Austria- 
Hungary had to summon, in rapid succession, one con- 
tingent after another of her veterans in civil life (up to 
48) to the colours, and to equip them, drill them, harden 
them for the severe campaigns to come — laboriously, 
and by straining every resource and every nerve, trying 
to make up for the serious deficiencies in her military 
armour that the wrongheadedness of her own parlia- 
ments had occasioned. It was the same with her small 
navy. There was a time — and it lasted for months, say, 
from October 1914, to April 1915— when, had it not 
been for Hindenburg and his brilliant successes against 
Eussia, the monarchy must have succumbed and would 
have been invaded as far as Vienna. These were the 
days when Przemysl fell and the Eussians stood before 
Cracow and in the Carpathian passes, in sight of the 
Hungarian lowlands. Germany alone during that period 
of the struggle saved Austria-Hungary from destruc- 
tion. 

From this episode, too, dated the estrangement be- 
tween Kaiser William and Emperor Francis Joseph. The 
latter sat sulking in Schonbrunn. He had never cared 
for his younger Hohenzollern colleague on the throne, 
always regarding him as a rash young man, a mushroom 
monarch ; there was very little in common between them, 
no true sympathy. William, the younger ruler, had cast 
the blame for the disastrous turn things had taken at 
that time on Austria, on Francis Joseph, and the latter 
again had overestimated the military resources and the 
willingness to assist him of the other. For eighteen 
months William did not come near his ally, and when he 



328 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

finally did, in the summer of 1916, the visit was only as 
a matter of cold formality. 

Nevertheless, throughout the war Germany's word be- 
came law. Every military measure was copied from her 
in Austria-Hungary. If Germany had resolved on a 
certain step, that was sufficient for her ally to sanction 
it. That was held unanswerable logic. And finally, after 
the serious Austrian reverses against Russia in Galicia 
last summer, reverses mainly due to carelessness on the 
part of several Austrian archdukes (since retired in dis- 
grace) commanding at that front, German leadership 
superseded Austrian even there. The Hindenburg front 
now included all up to Rumania. The whole Austrian 
forces (saving those at the Italian front) became prac- 
tically German-led, became subsidiaries. A bitter pill 
to swallow for Austrian and Hungarian pride, of course. 
But on the other hand, a feeling of security under this 
German segis began to pervade the monarchy which be- 
fore had been sadly lacking. And now Germany has her 
way in everything that concerns the conduct of the war, 
both in the military and diplomatic sense. That is the 
simple truth. 

Much has been said about the character of the young 
Emperor Carl. At first many expected him to show 
greater independence regarding relations with Germany. 
But the force of circumstances must of necessity govern 
him as they did his predecessor. Besides, while this 
young ruler has a number of estimable qualities, firm- 
ness is scarcely among them. Intellectually he is bright, 
of quick perception, rather democratic in his leanings. 
I myself have seen him, not many months before his ac- 
cession to the throne, trundling a baby carriage under 
the trees in the Ringstrasse of Vienna. The soldiers 
at the front all adore him. He is so cordial and unaf- 



CONCLUDING REMAEKS 329 

fected. But all that is not the point here — ^Kaiser Wil- 
liam's prestige decidedly overshadows his. 

Will Hungary separate from Austria^ — now or in the 
near future f 

Hungary, under certain conditions, might. There is 
and has been ever since 1848, in fact ever since Hungary 
fell under the domination of Austria, a strong separatist 
sentiment in Hungary. The Independence, or '48er, 
Party, which advocates complete separation, exerts an 
enormous influence throughout the country. It com- 
prises many of the strongest minds of Hungary, men like 
the brothers Karolyi, Michael and Stephen, Apponyi, 
Justh, Ugron. This party is also in favour of conferring 
the franchise on the masses who are at present deprived 
of it under the old aristocratic dispensation of which 
Count Tisza, leader of the dominant party, is the chief 
spokesman. Count Andrassy, of the Constitutional, or 
'67er, Party, stands with his followers on a platform 
of strict interpretation of, and adherence to, the agree- 
ment of 1867, granting Hungary a limited autonomy. 
The Hungarian parliament has been in session during 
the war, and frequent attempts have been made to oust 
Tisza from power and to hold a general election with the 
slogan of an extension of the ballot. These fierce attacks 
on the status quo seem now succeeding. However, even 
within the ranks of the dominant party, as well as of the 
Constitutional Party, there are many champions of ulti- 
mate separation and independence. 

If the Entente Powers would only guarantee to Hun- 
gary complete independence and full integrity of her 
soil, including, of course, Transylvania, the Banat, and 
Slavonia (where the Eumanian element is strong), as 
well as the retention of Bosnia and Hercegovina (where 



330 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

the population is chiefly Serbian), sentiment would 
quickly veer around. Hungary, however, could not tol- 
erate a strong Serbia, because that would mean a per- 
petual threat to herself. Such a Serbia would be a piv- 
otal point around which all anti-Hungarian intrigues 
would turn. It would be a rallying centre for all Soutlf 
Slav aspirations and that would be synonymous with the 
end of Hungarian power. 

Hungary, it must be remembered, is an artificial politi- 
cal creation. The kernel, it is true, the lowlands of the 
Danube and the Theiss, is Magyar. But that means only 
eight millions, against fifteen milhons of Slavs and Ru- 
manians. The Magyars think of themselves always as a 
*'Herrenvolk," a lordly race, one which by reason of 
central geographical position, political fitness, cohesive- 
ness, and strong racial pride domineers over the ma- 
jority. 

All through the war Hungary's attitude has been pe- 
culiar. Account must be taken of the elemental aversion 
felt by the Hungarian for the Austrian, in fact for the 
Teuton as a race. This hatred is not only founded in 
history. It is instinctive. 

So, then, if Hungary could be assured of keeping all 
the territory she has, I verily believe an instant move- 
ment in favour of complete severance from the ''Aus- 
trian yoke" would set in, a movement which would be 
like a resistless avalanche. But the Entente Powers, for 
the first twelvemonth of the war trying with the Hun- 
garians persuasion by every means of publicity, were 
in the end unwise enough to encourage Russia and Ru- 
mania in advancing their claims to Hungarian territory. 
It is that which turned Hungary at last into a unit for 
utmost resistance. Up to the outbreak of the war, and 
even for a time after that, Hungary clung to her old sym- 



CONCLUDING EEMARKS 331 

pathy for England and France, despite everything. 
This sympathy was founded in the fact that England 
and France, during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848- 
49, had strongly, though unavailingly, sided with the sep- 
aration movement, as well as for the reason that Hun- 
gary, in its political ideals and the whole frame of its 
mind, approaches the Western Powers much more closely 
than either Austria or Germany. Russia, on the other 
hand, she has always dreaded because of the help Russia 
gave to Austria in 1849 in suppressing the revolution 
and in bringing about the surrender of Vilagos. As to 
America, Hungary has never forgotten the hospitality 
shown here to Kossuth, and pro-American feeling is gen- 
eral with the whole people of every rank and section. Of 
that I had occasion amply to convince myself by exten- 
sive travel in Hungary during the war. 

Will there be a rising for Liberalism in Austria-Hun- 
gary? 

That is another question that suggests itself in the 
present peculiar circumstances. In my answer I mean 
to confine myself to Austria alone, since as regards Hun- 
gary the foregoing would seem a sufficient reply. But 
a brief survey of the Austrian political complexion be- 
fore and during the war must be given. I shall endeav- 
our to simplify this matter as much as is feasible, and to 
omit non-essentials. 

To put it briefly, the political development of Austria- 
Hungary since 1867 along healthy normal lines has been 
greatly hampered by the nationalistic problem. As the 
gift of unrestricted manhood suffrage was bestowed on 
the masses of Austria (in contradistinction from Hun- 
gary, where broad strata of the population of voting age 
are excluded from the franchise to this very hour), they 
quickly and for the first time became aware of the enor- 



332 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

mous value of this sharp weapon in furthering their sep- 
arate racial ideals and desires. Before the untram- 
melled and ruthless use of this weapon went down every 
rampart of defence the hitherto dominant minority in 
Austria — i.e., the Austrians of Teuton stock — ^had erected 
in time agone. They began to feel their strength. They 
began to make use of their, combinedly, great majority. 
A breed of politicians grew up under these new condi- 
tions that made the astute manipulation of racial preju- 
dices and aversions, of jealousies and aims apart, their 
special province, their stock-in-trade. Unavoidably the 
interests of the whole suffered. Each party, each small 
political fraction or faction, often but of restricted local 
importance, with a horizon narrowly bound, lost sight of 
the common good and devoted itself solely to what they 
conceived to be the special interests of their ''national- 
ity," of their clan or tribe, be it German or Slovene, Ru- 
thenian or Pole, Czech or Moravian, Slovak or Hannak, 
Rumanian, Italian, or Ladin ; for all these races or racial 
fragments had millions or hundreds of thousands of their 
own blood forming part of the whole polyglot mass. 
Once launched on this path it became next to impossible 
to retrace steps, to pull up stakes and set out for a new 
common meeting-ground. 

Beneath this racial problem and its insoluble difficul- 
ties lies the political tragedy — occasionally, indeed, wax- 
ing a farce — of Austria during the last fifty years. AH 
internal reforms on a large scale grew impossible, be- 
cause Parliament could never be united on such a pro- 
gramme; because there were ever more pressing local 
and nationalistic advantages to be striven for; because 
each legislative measure was the result of bargains be- 
tween a score of conflicting interests. And always plans 
for the common weal had to be shelved in favour of pica- 



CONCLUDING REMARKS 333 

yune improvements, appropriations, or separate wishes. 
Besides, obstructionist tactics, the tool of the weak, flour- 
ished as in no other legislative body. Such tactics had 
to be tolerated, because every one of the parties compos- 
ing Parliament had in turn to employ them against. at- 
tempted coercion, and because no party was in itself 
strong and numerous enough at any time to be able to 
dispense with the services of such obstruction. 

To the visitor at a session of the Austrian Parliament 
(housed, let it be said in parenthesis, in perhaps the 
most beautiful and artistic structure used for a like pur- 
pose anywhere in the world), the impression was that 
of an inchoate mass, torn by conflicting interests and held 
together by none. There has probably never been such 
a national representative body before as that. 

Yet hidden from view there were many valuable ele- 
ments — valuable individually, I mean. There was and 
is a strong leaven of political and social Liberalism work- 
ing within these apparently amorphous groups. Form- 
ing part of each fraction (and I will not inflict on the 
reader the enumeration of these or attempt the thankless 
task of placing each in his own category), there is in- 
variably a smaller cluster of men, individually eminently 
respectable and capable, reaching out vainly for nobler 
ends, tinctured more or less strongly with political Lib- 
eralism, as that word is understood in countries lying 
more to the west. 

How large is the number of those men? Large enough, 
at any rate, to form the nucleus of a body contending 
for a saner and more advanced system of popular gov- 
ernment. But — and there's the rub — these men are scat- 
tered ; are divided from one another by the special aims 
of the ** nation" or race to which they belong; form in no 
sense an entity and never present a united front for any 



334 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

purpose whatever. And now I come to the crux of the 
matter. Since the spring of 1914 the Austrian Parlia- 
ment, after a particularly exasperating and long-drawn 
fit of obstructionism, completely paralysing for months 
legislation of any kind, was adjourned indefinitely by the 
late emperor. In a way the constitution permitted this, 
as it also permitted, by some stretching of interpretation, 
the interimistic governing of the country, for purely ad- 
ministrative purposes, by means of Paragraph XIV of 
the same constitution. The war intervened. The Aus- 
trian Government has found it most convenient, and as- 
suredly less troublesome, to continue this quasi-auto- 
cratic system of provisional bureaucratic rule. Cabinet 
after cabinet has tottered since and hastened to its fall, 
owing to inherent difficulties of the situation. One pre- 
mier, Count Stuergkh, was assassinated. Dates for the 
summoning of Parliament to resume its constitutional 
duties were fixed repeatedly, but always proved iUusory, 
until mid-April of this year, when the internal distress 
of the country forced measures for the reconvening of 
that body. As to what this parliament (made up 
throughout of members elected before the war) will do, 
that is a question. This much, though, is certain: that 
the trend toward Liberalism has been greatly promoted 
by the events of the war. 

However, how can Liberalism, though undoubtedly ex- 
isting in Austria in the rough, so to speak — ^how can it 
crystallise? How can it assert itself in the concrete? 
How can it play a dominant role under any circum- 
stances — at least under circumstances that, at this writ- 
ing, seem at all likely to arise? How can these Lib- 
erals impose themselves upon the government, oust the 
present scarcely constitutional government, with Count 
Czernin, the foreign minister, as its brains, and Count 



CONCLUDING EEMAEKS 335 

Clam-Martinic, the premier, as its fignre-liead — ^both of 
them, by the way, pure Slavs, pure Czechs, but of the 
time-serving stripe of political faith — and set up some 
sort of really representative cabinet f How, indeed? 

The answer seems despairingly difficult. In times of 
a desperate war, with martial law stifling every expres- 
sion of real sentiment, both in press and public life — ^but 
of "public life" there is, indeed, none at present, there 
has not been since early in 1914 — with the whole execu- 
tive and administrative machinery under the absolute 
control of the present cabinet and of the young and un- 
tried emperor; with a censorship many degrees stricter 
than that obtaining in Germany; and with the whole ci- 
vilian population cowed, half -starved, listless, apathetic 
to an incredible degree — ^how, indeed, should Liberalism 
triumph? 

Unless, in fact, one of those strange incidents should 
arise which the history of mankind seems never tired 
of evolving at unforeseen moments ; some such chain of 
apparently trivial circumstances that turned Russian 
czardom out of power overnight. Who knows? In this 
war the unexpected has happened before; everything 
seems thinkable; everything is on the cards. But only if 
some such cataclysm should suddenly overtake the House 
of Habsburg does a near victory of Liberalism in Aus- 
tria seem feasible at this moment. 

And lastly, will there be a change along racial lines ? 

This question can hardly be answered in the same 
broad way in which it is phrased. But certain things can 
be taken for granted. Two facts have impressed them- 
selves unmistakably during these last three years. To 
wit, first, that the only large element of population in the 
whole of Austria that has demonstrably behaved with 
absolute loyalty and devotion, and shown a spirit of sac- 



336 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

rifice scarcely inferior to tliat in Germany itself, is the 
Austrians of Teuton stock. And second, that all the oth- 
ers have manifested, in varying degree, dissatisfaction 
and political unreliability, notably the Czechs of Bohe- 
mia, the Ruthenians of Galicia, the Serbs of South Hun- 
gary, Bosnia, and Hercegovina, and the Southern Slavs 
of Istria, Dalmatia, and Croatia. 

Disaffection has unquestionably permeated most 
deeply and insidiously the rank and file of the Czech na- 
tionality in Austria. Of that there was abundant proof 
during the war. Confining myself only to things wit- 
nessed by myself or heard in Vienna on absolutely re- 
liable evidence, and leaving wholly aside the extrava- 
gant stories of Bohemian risings and massacres that ap- 
peared, from time to time, in the press elsewhere, there 
remains a strong enough substratum of truth to warrant 
one in making the statement above. Thus, in compari- 
son to their numbers, the Czechs have furnished by far 
the largest contingent of Austrian prisoners of war. 
Whole regiments of them have yielded themselves, al- 
most without a shot, to Russians and Serbs. Two Czech 
regiments were stricken from the army rolls. Wholesale 
confiscations of Czech property because of treasonable 
practices were published officially. The criminal trial for 
high treason of Dr. Kramarz, the ablest Czech political 
leader and parliamentarian, and of his confederates, 
which took up three months last summer and brought out 
astounding revelations, ending in conviction and death 
sentences, showed beyond peradventure that the whole of 
the Czech population (approximately six millions) is 
honeycombed with anti- Austrian aspirations. The course 
pursued by Professor Masaryk and other Czech intellec- 
tuals, though carried on in exile, points to the same con- 
clusion. 



CONCLUDING EEMARKS 337 

These are just a few sample facts whicli I might mul- 
tiply. In Croatia and Dalmatia the showing made was 
similar, although at the various fronts these men, born 
warriors, to whom fighting is a treat, did well enough. 
But the bulk of their political leaders expatriated them- 
selves soon after the outbreak of the war, and went over 
into the camp of the Allies. At one time twenty members 
of the Dalmatian legislature thus turned their backs on 
Austrian rule. 

Now what in the face of all this is the Austrian gov- 
ernment to do ? What in the face of widespread Serbian, 
Croatian, and Rumanian disaffection is the Hungarian 
government to do? 

There are, of course, provided the Habsburgs retain 
their throne (which, however, seems by no means a fore- 
gone conclusion), two alternatives open. The one would 
be increased repression of the Slavs and the re-establish- 
ment of old-time hegemony of the Austrians of Germanic 
stock, and of an increased Magyar domination over the 
other races in Hungary. But Austria tried that policy 
in Hungary for eighteen years, viz., from 1849 (when 
the revolution had been drowned in blood and the gal- 
lows had reaped an aftermath) to 1867, and had found 
it not to answer. 

The other alternative would be a frank recognition of 
the untenable situation sketched above, and the honest 
and sweeping attempt to satisfy the racial or national 
aspirations for complete autonomy that are felt by the 
various Slav populations, as well as by the Rumanian 
one, in both Austria and Hungary. 

A number of circumstances that have come to my 
knowledge while in Vienna strongly incline me to the be- 
lief that the last-named policy will be adopted. 

But to do so is not easy. It involves, for one thing, in- 



338 AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

justice to the Teuton element in the Austrian and Hun- 
garian population. For as to Hungary it must not be 
forgotten that there, too, about three millions of Ger- 
manic strain are living, descendants of Germans who, 
at the invitation of Hungarian kings, settled there cen- 
turies ago. But the ten millions of Teutonic Austrians, 
they who, as has been freely acknowledged, proved the 
most faithful to the dynasty and to the rule of the mon- 
archy — what would be their ultimate fate if the policy of 
racial {i.e., Slavic) reconciliation became the settled Aus- 
trian programme? This they have begun to ask them- 
selves of late. Would not these ten millions be in the 
end swallowed up, body and soul, in the Slavic flood sur- 
rounding them — a Slavic flood, it must be kept in mind, 
outnumbering the Teutonic Austrians two to one ? 

Li view of this prospect, by no means relished by them 
(for they still justly pride themselves on the historic 
part they have played for many centuries in their Danu- 
bian and mountain lands to the east, the part of ' ' civilisa- 
tion bearers"), of late many of these Austrians of Ger- 
manic lineage turn their eyes longingly toward Germany 
herself. But a glance at the map will show the almost 
irreconcilable difficulties in the way of their becoming 
amalgamated with the body of their other German-speak- 
ing kindred. However, the problem has not as yet pre- 
sented itself to the vast majority of Austrian Teutons at 
all. And where there are some — the German Bohemians, 
for example — who would rejoice to be joined to Ger- 
many proper, there are many more that would not. 
From my intimate acquaintance with the German Austri- 
ans, I must say that the idea of being incorporated with 
the Kaiser's empire seems by no means palatable to the 
vast majority of them. There are all sorts of reasons. 
They, the Austrian Teutons, are of an easy disposition, 



CONCLUDING EEMAEKS 339 

for one thing, and they dread the strenuous life, the se- 
verely laborious existence that would be their portion 
in the event of such a union. Besides, as must be pointed 
out here, the statecraft of Germany considers the con- 
tinued existence of an Austria-Hungary of undiminished 
size and population indispensable to her, Germany's, 
own peace and welfare. 

Briefly, then, the whole problem is bristling with dif- 
ficulties, some of them inherent and all of them hard to 
overcome. Nevertheless, I feel convinced that the only 
expedient, either to solve the racial question in Austria- 
Hungary or, at any rate, to tide her over for another in- 
definite period, is the one which I have attempted to out- 
line in the foregoing; and that being so, probably the 
means will be found. It must be reconciliation of the 
races living side by side, or nothing. It must be all but 
complete self-government for each national and geo- 
graphical entity within the borders of Austria-Hungary, 
a recognition of the full rights of each idiom, of each ra- 
cial fragment, to develop unhindered, to maintain its 
peculiar traits and talents, its own '* personality," in 
short. Instead of greater centralisation (which has 
often been proposed as a remedy) it must be greater de- 
centralisation. 

If not, I feel sure, the whole monarchy will go to pieces, 
with or without outside help, and this within a very short 
time. When the war broke out, it was probably the gen- 
eral expectation that Austria-Hungary could not with- 
stand and survive the shock. On the contrary, the war, 
the common danger, has acted as a cement, knitting the 
whole firmly together. But only for a time. The in- 
ternal strain continues. Its effects have been neutral- 
ised, so to speak, by the war which brought all the races 



340 AUSTBIA-HUNGABY: POLYGLOT EMPIRE 

together in the same trenches, to fight or to die. Bnt 
after the war the abnormal pressure will be renewed, 
and the internecine strife will be resumed with more ar- 
dour than ever — unless there be far-going reconciliation, 
far-going justice, far-going government by the people; 
a United States of Austria-Hungary, in fact, or some- 
thing like it. 

Now, the Austrian parliament has met and at this writ- 
ing is just as contentious, just as much torn by race 
strife as ever. Evidently, until after new elections noth- 
ing can be expected. The upper house (or house of lords) 
with its smaller membership of 226 (against the lower 
one's 533), is governed by a more reasonable spirit, it is 
true. But the upper house is not empowered by the con- 
stitution to originate legislation. Finally, another cabi- 
net of short duration has resigned. It is chaos. In Hun- 
gary storm signals of all kinds have been hoisted. Tisza 
has fallen from power, and, of course, over the franchise 
enlargement problem. Clouds in which the lightning 
slumbers are lowering on the horizon. Pactional spirit 
is as strong as ever. 

Who can tell the future? 

Meanwhile the *'Mittel-Europa" idea, first solemnly 
and rather convincingly promulgated by the German 
Reichstag member, Naumann, is slowly pushed forward. 
To weld the territory of the four powers — Germany, Aus- 
tria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey — into a solid block 
would, of course, solve the question of Austro-Hungarian 
disintegration more or less completely. For such a con- 
solidation, such a *' pooling of issues" would necessarily 
have a restorative effect on Austria-Hungary. It would 
make each member stronger in every sense. But before 
the "Mittel Europa" idea can be seriously discussed, the 
war itself must be decided. In their present mood, their 



CONCLUDINa EEMAEKS 341 

present frame of mind, none of the Entente Powers 
would even dream of permitting the setting-np of sucli a 
powerful system, and as we remember even President 
Wilson has strongly pronounced against it. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Adlersberg, cave wonder of, 11 
Agram, race riots, 68 , 
Albert of Austria, 30 
Albrecht of Habsburg, 29 
Alfold, 7 

core of Hungary, 121 
Alfonso, King, 159 
Alliances, matrimonial, 27 
Alsace, and Rudolph of Habs- 
burg, 28 
American Eed Cross, 19 
Andrassy, Count Julius, 38 

during session, 119 
Andrew, King, of Hungary, invit- 
ing the Saxons to settle, 10 
Antipathy, racial, between Slavs 
and Teutons, 78 

Magyar and Teuton, 80 
Apafy, Prince Michael, 34 
Aristocracy, Austrian, 242 
Artstetten, 160 
Augusta, Archduchess, 175 
Ausgleieh, compromise between 
Austria and Hungary, 37 

features infused into it by 
Count Beust, 70 

spirit of it, 71 

economic results, 130 
Austria, parliamentary life of, 92 

deficient control, 129 

Jewish element in, 143 

Christian Socialists, 144 



Austria, analphabets in, 145 

war consolidation, 186 
Austria erit in orhe ultima, motto 

of the Habsburgs, 26 
Authority, watchword, 138 
Autonomy, measure of, for Slavic 

provinces, 20 
Avars, 29 

Austria-Hungary, woman of, de- 
scription, 20 
political liberalism in, 141 
Jewish element in, 143 
her unpreparedness for war, 
325 

Babenbergs, ancient rulers of 

Austria, 45 
Bakony forest, 121 
Baltazzi Aristide, 242 
Banat, Teutons of, 104 
Barczy, Dr., 211 
Bavaria, and racial affinity with 

Austrian Teutons, 49 
Bavarians, their Celtic admixture, 

49 
Belgrade, 152 
Berehtold, Count, 278 
Berlin, university of, 18 
Bethlen Gabor, 34 
Beust, Count, 37 
and Bohemia, 41 
and the Ausgleieh, 70 



345 



346 



INDEX 



Beust, Count, and the Trias in 

Germany, 71 
Bismarck, influence on Austria- 
Hungary, 72 

and his Memoirs, 87 

saying by, 95 
Bogomiles, a sect, 66 
Bohemia, characterisation of, 16 

state of education in, 18 

Charles IV of, 29 

acquired by Habsburgs, 40 

problem of, 112 

cloth mills of, 231 
Bohemian Forest, and its health 

resorts, 11 
Boleslav, Duke of Bohemia, 39 
Boleslav the Cruel, 123 
Boroevic, Gen., 265 
Bosnia, sport and game in, 8 
Bosnians, 66 
Bruck on Leitha, 278 
Budapest, 2 

university of, 19 

woman of, 21 

Magyarisation of, 51 

official statistics, 208 

war visits to, 317 
Bukovina, when acquired, 9 

Cabrinovie, Gavril, 99 
Capuchin mausoleiun, 157 
Carinthia, province of, 16 

analphabets in, 18 

fell to Austria, 30 
Carl Ludwig, Archduke, 175 
Carl Stephan, Archduke, 175 
Carniola, province of, 16 

fell to Austria, 30 
Carpathian range, 8 

victims of campaign there, 196 



Carso, 225 

Catholic Church in Austria, 23 

Cattaro, Dalmatian coast town, 12 

Centrifugal agencies, 182 

Charlemagne, founder of Ostmark 
or Austria, 29 

Charles IV, Emperor, 29 

Charles V, Emperor, 27 

Charles VI, Emperor, 35 

Chemical industry, 231 

Clam-Martinic, Count, 325 

Concordat, between Vatican and 
Austria-Hungary, 86 

Control stations, sanitary, 290 

Constitutional Party, of Hungary, 
38 

Cornwall, Richard of, 28 

Coronation Hill, 35 

Cortez, 27 

Corvinus, Matthias, 34 

Counter-Reformation, 31 

Cracow, in Galieia, university of, 
18 

Criminality, youthful, 202 

Croatia, illiteracy in, 18 

Crown, ancient German imperial, 
154 

Curzola, island in Adriatic, 12 

Czartoryski, Prince, 177 

Czech, rivalry with Teuton ele- 
ment in Bohemia, 18 

Czechs, historical facts, 39 
political rebirth of, 82 

Czernin, Count, 334 

Czernowitz, university of, 18 

Czikos, Hungarian horseherd, 7 

Dachstein, highest peak in Styria, 

250 
Dalmatia, illiteracy in, 17 



INDEX 



347 



Danube, 12 

Deak, 140 

Death rate, at war prisoners' 

eamps, 291 
Delegations, joint body, 134 
Deputies, Chambers of, 134 
Deutsehmeister, Vienna regiment, 

190 
Dimitrieff, General, 194 
Diocletian, Emperor, and Salona, 

12 
Dniester, river, 47 
Doline, 225 
Donna Blanca, 167 
Drave, river, 12 
Dreibund, 232 
Dye industry, 231 
Dual Monarchy, illegitimacy in 
the, 24 

name of, 28 

inner mechanism of, 45 

delegations, 134 

Ebner-Eschenbaeh, Baroness, 138 
Eger, Bohemia, prisoners' camp, 

281 
Eiselsberg, Prof, von, 254 
Elias, Prince, 178 
Entente Powers, 329 
Erdody, Count, 133 
Ernest, Archduke, 173 
Espionage, by means of needle 

pricks, 300 
Este line, 163 
Estrangement, between Erancis 

Joseph and Kaiser William, 

327 
"Eternal minority," applied to 

Teutons in Austria, 95 
Etiquette, Spanish, in Vienna, 159 



Famine, influence of, on health, 
208 
riots, 209 

Ferdinand of Austria, 34 

Flims, 263 

Fischer, Colonel, and his defense 
of Bukovina, 9 

Food cards, 207 

Food dictator, 214 

Forest peasantry, of Styria, 229 

Francis, of Lorraine, 163 

Francis Ferdinand, Archduke, as- 
sassinated, 99 
his Trias idea, 101 

Francis Joseph, Emperor, 35 
after the Peace of Prague, 71 
proclamation in 1848, 90 
at outbreak of war, 149 
and the Hungarians, 158 
tragedy of family life not un- 
deserved, 172 

Francis Salvator, Archduke, 163 

Frederick, Archduke, 67 
biographical data, 170 

Frederick III, Emperor, 26 

Frederick, King, of Prussia, 35 
at war, 36 

French Revolution, scant influ- 
ence of, 13 

Fugitives' coffee house, 259 

Galicia, province of, regarding 
prevailing illiteracy, 17 

German Empire, creation of, 37 

German Federation, 37 

Godollo, 158 

"Golden Bull," 34 

Gorgey, Hungarian general, 36 

Gradiska, province of, and school 
attendance, 47 



348 



INDEX 



Gravosa, Dalmatian coast, 12 

Graz, university of, 18 

Grisons, 57 

Guard, parliamentary, in Hun- 
gary, 119 

Gypsies, 66 

Gyor, Hungary, prisoners' camp, 
281 

Habichtsburg, 28 
Habsburgs, racial descent of the, 
12 

marriage accretions of the, 27 

of non-German stock, 149 

"Habsburg lip," 150 

house of, 163 

fund, 177 
"Hausmacht," 154 
Haynau, Austrian general, 36 
Hegemony, Austrian, in Germany, 

37 
Heidelberg, university of, 18 
Hercegovina, attractions for 

sportsmen, 8 
"Herrenvolk," 330 
High Tatra, scenery and game in, 

8 
Hoarding, of provisions, 214 
Hofburg, in Vienna, 26 
Hohenwart, Austrian statesman, 

42 
Hohenzollerns, 36 
Hradsheen, 41 
Hungary, parliamentarism in, 93 

political readjustment of, 113 

aristocratic basis of, 120 

industrial aspirations, 132 

Liberalism there, 140 

land policy, 141 

Jewish element in, 143 



Hungary, effect of war, 185 
Hunnish tribes, 48 
Hunyady, John, 34 
Hussite war, 41 

Idria, 232 

Illyrian Kingdom, 55 

Independence Party, of Hungary, 
37 

Investments, foreign, in Austria- 
Hungary, 232 

Irredenta movement, 264 

Istria, Austrian province, illiter- 
acy in, 18 

Italian element, in Dalmatia, 226 

Italiomissimi, 57 

Jesuit domination, in Austria, 150 
Jewish element, in Dual Mon- 
archy, 143 
Jokai, Maurus, 138 
Joseph, Archduke, 175 
Joseph II, Emperor, 36 

failure to Germanise his em- 
pire, 54 
and Prater, 157 

Kalnoky, 140 

Karl, Emperor and King, and race 
strife, 73 
throne speech of, 107 

Karst, 225 

Koerber, Dr. Ernest von, Austrian 
statesman, 15 

Konigsgratz, battle of, 37 

Kossuth, Louis, dictator of Hun- 
gary in 1848-49, 94 

Kramarz, Dr., 336 

Krobatin, General von, 187 



INDEX 



349 



Ladenburg, prisoners' camp, 281 
Ladiners, 52 

partly suecurqj) to Italian prop- 
aganda, 57 

their folk lore, 58 

their refuge town, 263 
Laibaeh, race riots, 68 
"Land of the Beeches," see Buko- 

vina, 46 
Languages, of intercourse or for 

official use, 62 
Laudon, 151 
Laxenburg, 159 
Leipzig, university of, 18 
Leitha, border stream between 

Austria and Hungary, 38 
Lemberg, university of, 18 
Leopold I, Emperor, 31 

and Hungarian risings, 34 
Leopold Salvator, Archduke, 167 
Lessina, Dalmatian isle, 12 
Liberalism, political, 141 
Liechtenstein, Prince, 242 
Linsingen, General von, 193 
Lissa, off Dalmatian coast, 12 
"Little Russians," see Ukrainians, 
Littorale, 56 

Lower Austria, province of, 47 
Louis, King, of Hungary, 30 
Louis XI of France, 148 
Louis XIV, and the Turks, 33 
Louis Philippe, of France, 36 
Luther, Martin, 27 
Luxemburg, House of, 29 

and Napoleon III, 67 



Magyar language^ belonging to 
Ural-Altaic stock, 53 

Magyars, the, characteristics, 31 
domination by, 106 

Mamaliga, Rumanian national 
dish, 10 

Mammoth caves of Styria, recent- 
ly discovered, 11 

Maria Josefa, Princess, 165 

Maria Theresa, Empress, 35 
indifferentism, 150 

Marie Louise, 162 

Marie Theresa, Archduchess, 248 

Marie Valerie, Archduchess, 163 

Maros, river, 31 

Masaryk, Prof., 336 

Max, Archduke, 166 

Maximilian, Emperor, 27 

Mazarin, 148 

Melk, Benedictine abbey on the 
Danube, 6 

"Melting Pot" theory, 61 

non-application to Dual Mon- 
archy, 74 

Metternieh, Prince Clemens, 36 

Miramar, chateau near Trieste, 
100 

"Mittel-Europa," 340 

Moesia, 48 

Mohacs, battle of, 30 

Money market, French, 232 

Montenuovo, Prince, 159 

Moravia, province of, and illit- 
eracy, 47 

Munich, university of, 18 



Magna Charta, and King Andrew 

II of Hungary, 33 
Magnates, House of, 134 
Hungarian, 141 



Napoleon I and nation strife, 54 
Napoleon III, and the race prob- 
lem, 55 
Napoleonic era, 36 



350 



INDEX 



Narenta, swamps of, 12 

Narishkine, Princess, 288 

National H3rmns, 187 

Naumann, Dr. Friedrich, 340 

Nettle cloth, 219 

Nettle fibre, fel7 

Nicholas I, Emperor, of Russia, 36 

Nicholas Nicholayevitch, Grand- 
duke, 221 

Nitrogen, as fertiliser, 220 

Nizhni Novgorod, 123 

Nobility, Austrian, with no racial 
ties, 153 

Norieum, 48 

North Sea fish, 205 

North Sea-Black Sea Canal, 324 

Nourishment, minimum of re- 
quired, 207 

Offspring, illegitimate, within 

monarchy, 22 
Ostmark, or Eastern Marches, 29 
Otto, Archduke, 165 
Ottoear of Bohemia, 29 

Pannonia, 31 
Parma line, 163 
Passarowitz, Peace of, 137 
Paternalism, as shown in popular 

writings, 138 
"Peaceful fusion," the Habsburgs* 

failure to accomplish it, 54 
Penfield, Frederic C, late U. S. 

ambassador in Vienna, 17 
Pilsudski, General, commanding 

Polish Legion, 307 
Pizarro, 27 
Poles, of Galieia, as oppressors of 

Ukrainians, 58 



Pochlarn, fief from Attila the 
Hun, 6 

Pragmatic sanction, 35 

Prague, university of, 18 
woman of, 21 
Czeehisation of, 51 
race riots during war, 68 

Prater, 157 

Presburg, 35 

Protheses, 252 

Provincial chambers, 20 

Pruth, river, 47 

Przemysl, 193 

Pskov, republic of, 123 

Puszta, 7 

Race rivalry, not an unmixed evil, 

80 
Radziwill, Prince, 177 
Ragusa, Dalmatian coast, 12 
Rainier, Archduke, 174 
Rakoezy, Francis and George, 34 
Red Cross, of Austria, 241 
Red Cross, of Hungary, 241 
Reichsdeutsche, 231 
Reichsrat, Austrian parliament, 

110 
Rhine-Danube Canal, 325 
Richelieu, 148 
Richter, Dr. Gottfried, 217 
Rising, Magyar, of 1848-49, 77 
Romansch, 57 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 60 
Rovereto, 263 
Rudolph, of Habsburg, 28 
Rumanian, orthodox priesthood, 18 
Russia, before consolidation, 123 
Ruthenian, 46 
Ruthenian peasantry, conditions 

of, 110 



INDEX 



351 



Ruthenian peasantry, illiteracy, 
111 
disaffection, 111 
Ryasan, 123 

Sabor, Croatian Diet, 102 

Salona, ruins of, 12 

Salzburg, province of, and school 
attendance, 47 
climate, 227 

Sarayevo, 66 

Save, river, 12 

Savoy, Prince Eugene of, 151 

Saxons, of Transylvania, particu- 
lars about the, 70 

Saybusch, 176 

Schonbrunn, 158 

Schwarzenberg, Princes, 228 

Semmering, attractions of, 5 

Sereth, river, 47 

"Sick Man," Europe's, 32 

Sigismund, Emperor, 30 

Skoda Works, 237 

Slavonia, district in southern 
Hungary, and illiteracy there, 
18 

Slovak sections of Hungary, illit- 
eracy, 18 

Slovenes, southern Slavs, 48 

Sophia, Archduchess, 36 

Staatsbahn, 235 

Statistics, census, of 1910, bear- 
ing on education in Austria, 
17 

Stamboul, 32 

St. John, Order of, 195 

St. Stephen, cathedral of, 30 

St. Stephen's crown, all political- 
ly embraced by Hungary, 47 

Sterz, 5 



Suabia, possessions of Rudolph of 

Habsburg in, 28 
"Submerged" minorities, 58 
Siidbahn, 235 
Sunarie, Dr., 102 
Svatopluk, early ruler of Moravia, 

40 
Sydney Smith, saying of, 117 
Stuergkh, Count, 210 
Switzerland, possessions in, 28 
"Synthetic" rubber, 220 
Szechenyi, Count, 133 
Szeklers, the Magyar element in 

Transylvania, 10 

Taaffe, Count, 42 

his motto, 89 

reconciliation plan, 140 
Teuton, rivalry with Czech ele- 
ment in Bohemia, 18 
Theiss, river, 12 
Theresienstadt, Prisoners' camp, 

280 
Thirty Years' War, 31 
Tiszaj Count Stephen, 38 

the "Man of Iron," 118 
Tokoly, Emeric, 34 
Toseana line, 163 
Transylvania, scenic attractions of, 
10 

added to Habsburg crown, 34 
Trent, 263 
Trias project, 101 
Trieste, fell to Austria, 30 
Tu, felix Austria, nube, 27 
"Turkish Peril," 32 
Tyrol, the, province in Austria, 
state of education in, 18 

Margaret of, surnamed Maul- 
tasch, 27 



352 

Tyrol, fell to Austria, 30 
Tyrolese dolomite range, 8 



INDEX 



Ueskub, 79 

Ukrainian, 46 

Ulm, 324 

United Catholics, 46 

Upper Austria, province of, 16 

Venice, 56 
Vienna, 2 

University of, 18 

eminence in surgery there, 19 

woman of, characterisation, 21 

Siege of, 32 

Congress of, 36 

Celtic and Slavic aborigines, 
50 

Teutonised name of, 50 

Slavisation of, 51 

people fond of court life, 179 
Vilagos, surrender of, 36 



Vindobona, 50 
Vinds, or Vends, 50 

Wachau, trip to the, 6 

War blind, 248 

"War brides," 318 

Waterways, inland, to the Black 

Sea, 325 
Weiskirchner, Dr., 210 
Wels, detention camp, 191 
White Mountain, battle of the, 30 
Wiener Bankverein, 233 
William, Emperor, visit to Vienna, 

179 
Worms, Diet of, 27 

Zapolya, John, 34 
Zara, Dalmatian coast, 12 
Zillerthal, 4 

Zips, district in Hungary, 104 
Zupa, village council in Bohemia, 
123 



213 7 




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